Past conduct issues raised during Torbay mayor debate

The next Mayor of Torbay will be Conservative councillor Hazel Foster, despite a last-minute bid by opposition councillors to block her appointment.

Cllr Foster (Wellswood) has served as deputy mayor to Cllr Barbara Lewis (Con, Preston) since June last year, and her elevation to the top job was expected to be a formality.

But Liberal Democrat councillor George Darling (St Marychurch) urged members to reconsider.

He highlighted a standards hearing in 2021 which found that Cllr Foster, who is a former Lord Mayor of Coventry, had bullied a council clerk and brought the council into disrepute.

Then in 2025 she was criticised for talking in a social media post about ‘black officers’ policing Torquay. She said she had intended to reference officers in black uniforms, and quickly deleted the post, but an official complaint was made and police classified it as a ‘hate incident’.

Cllr Darling read a list of news headlines relating to the incidents and said: “We need to look at how this will be perceived. From an image point of view we should be really conscious of that, and about what message that sends out to people looking at Torbay.”

And, he said, it was a dangerous move to politicise the role of mayor.

But Cllr Nick Bye (Con, Wellswood) said Cllr Darling’s comments were ‘awful’.

“There is absolutely no reason why Hazel Foster cannot be our civic mayor-elect,” he added.

Seventeen councillors voted in favour of Cllr Foster becoming mayor-elect, with 12 against and two abstentions.

Cllr Foster said she had received an apology from Cllr Darling the morning after the meeting.

She added: “He simply reminded me of our greatest post-war Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher when she said ‘I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left’. How right she was.

“I am delighted to be appointed as the mayor-elect and look forward to taking on the role in May. I would very much like to thank all the councillors who supported me, especially my ward colleague Cllr Nick Bye and independent Cllr Nicole Amil (Ind, Cockington with Chelston).

“I particularly appreciated the very kind words Cllr Amil said given her many years of commitment to the Civic Mayoralty.”