About the mayor
Councillor Gordon Newton, Mayor of Maidstone 2023-2024
Gordon was born in 1948 at Hardy Street in Maidstone. His Mother, formerly Betty Ann Bradley, was a WAAF from Maidstone based at Detling Airfield where she met William Edward Newton from Lincolnshire serving as an aircraft engineer and armourer with the RAF. He was serving at Detling in 1940 when the airfield was attacked by the Luftwaffe Stuka dive bombers and strafed by their support ME 109 fighters.
He spent most of his early life in Lincolnshire attending The Waltham Toll Bar Secondary Modern School before moving to Maidstone where he met and married Carol in Ditton Church 52 years ago. They now have three grandsons by way of their only daughter Elaine and her husband Andy.
Gordon found employment with the Wettern Group at Aylesford Sandpit working in the laboratory, testing the quality of sand that was being quarried for casting engine blocks at the Ford Works in Dagenham. The background of aggregate analysis and a scientific mind led to his promotion as a development technician specialising in cement and aggregate based external plaster coatings for buildings, primarily for use in the Middle East. Due to the expansion of the market in the oil rich states of Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman, and many others he was appointed as the Technical Director as the market internationally grew for his products.
He decided that he needed a new challenge and set up the business as The Stone Shop (Maidstone) Ltd based at East Farleigh and continued the theme of working with natural stone products, designing, and manufacturing family memorials. He later expanded into designing and building many national memorials including amongst many the Falklands Memorial in Trinity Gardens, Tower Hill, London; the National Memorial to ‘The Few’ at Capel-le-Ferne in Kent; the National Merchant Navy Memorial on Plymouth Ho, Devon; and the Memorial to Captain Louis Nolan in Maidstone. Nolan, the Cavalry Master based at the Barracks in Maidstone, lost his life in The Charge of The Light Brigade during the Crimean campaign. The monument was constructed in his honour and is located in front of The Trinity Foyer in Church Street Maidstone.
Gordon was elected in 2011 as an independent Maidstone borough councillor representing Downswood and Otham and has been active in many areas of both wards. He can be seen most mornings litter picking with his dog ‘Bonnie’ in his neighbourhood and has maintained the role for over 12 years in all weathers. Ensuring that pavements and roads are kept ‘safe, clean, and green’ is important to Gordon and the community he maintains.
Gordon has served and spoken on many committees and subjects as an independent with an open mind and will continue to fight for the rights of all residents to the best of his ability.
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