A POLITICAL fledgling is hoping to pull off a David against Goliath style ballot box giant killing – and slay the community stadium in doing so.

Independent candidate Simon King is hoping to oust Wycombe District Council Leader Lesley Clarke at the May 5 elections.

He has put himself forward in the Abbey ward of Tory Cllr Clarke on an anti-stadium platform.

The lifelong Claymoor Park resident feels “very passionately” a stadium for Wycombe Wanderers and Wasps should not be built on Green Belt land.

Wycombe Air Park, Booker, Great Marlow, is the proposed site for the new ground.

Mr King, 43, said: “The Green Belt may only be used by rabbits, voles, crows and whatever else but it's part of our heritage and it needs to be maintained.

“Once you nibble away at it, it's gone forever.”

The father-of-four works for bookmakers Ladbrokes.

He said: “I should be good at laying odds for myself.

"I'd say I'm certainly not the favourite or second favourite.

“I'm a total newbie, I've got no real political aspirations at all.

"But I like a challenge and I'll give it a go.”

He believes he has “a pretty good chance” if there is groundswell of votes on the stadium.

He said: “I need to make sure there's a message that gets across to WDC that people really don't want this stadium, not at any price.”

He stressed he has no particular political leanings and was not anti-Conservative per se.

“I'm not some closet Labour or communist going Tory bashing,” he said.

Mr King, who was highly critical of WDC's stadium consultation, added: “I'm very pro-Wanderers, I support having Wasps in the area.”

His political opponent Cllr Clarke said: “It is an issue which everybody is quite rightly worried about and the only thing I can say, and I keep reiterating, is that no decision has been made, there's no planning application yet.”

She believes this is at least a year away.

“There are a lot of issues in the ward at the moment which quite frankly are as important, if not more important," she said.

“Those are right on the horizon, not beyond the horizon.”

The Tory Leader said: “I would have thought he's not standing particularly against myself, but is standing against the district councils' decisions at the moment on the stadium.

“I think people have got to realise it's not me that makes the decision.

"We are a cabinet, we are working as a team of people.”

On the doorsteps, voters mention potholes, traffic and individual problems like planning issues, she said.

She stressed she is not taking anything for granted on May 5.

“I think you'd be an absolute idiot if you felt confident, I think that's arrogance,” she said.