For a man who once said there was ‘no chance on earth’ he would go into local politics, the mayor of Witney has achieved an awful lot for his community.

A ‘Yorkshire boy done good’, Chris Holliday spent time working in the military and construction before even considering a role in the political sphere.

Since becoming the town's mayor in May, he has done everything he can to engage with the community and lend a listening ear to people from all walks of life.

Mr Holliday was born in Scarborough in 1951 and raised in the small market town of Masham in North Yorkshire.

After school he enrolled in the army, where he served for a number of years in the Royal Engineers.

At the end of his time in the military, Mr Holliday went into construction. He took a job in Luton working for T and E Neville Ltd as a contracts maintenance manager, moving to Thame in the early 1990s – his first foray into Oxfordshire.

The building boom sweeping across the south of the country was what drew Mr Holliday to the region – but after only a couple of years the bubble burst and he and many others were made redundant.

In 2001 he married his wife Lisa in a church in Banbury. The couple have three daughters: Siobhan, 14, Sionainne, 13, and Sinead, 11. They are, respectively, an air cadet, an army cadet, and a St John cadet.

Finding more construction work in the field through an agency, Mr Holliday worked as a construction site manager, until a serious accident on a site in Oxford wreaked havoc on his professional life.

He was raised up by a tower crane lifting a pack of bricks and dropped 30ft, causing extensive damage to his spine, shoulder, ribs and wrists.

Mr Holliday spend a long time out of work as he recovered from his injuries. During this period he took on the role of a house-husband while his family lived in Chipping Norton for a few years. After that the Hollidays moved to Madley Park in Witney in 2005.

Throughout his life, Mr Holliday always had a keen interest in the communities in which he lived, and Witney was no exception. His engagement with the community grew there when he joined a residents association in Madley Park, a position in which he began to observe the potential and limitations of a town council.

Despite previously saying there was ‘no chance on earth’ he would ever venture into local politics, Mr Holliday was asked to stand for a seat on the town council left open by Sian Davies, who stepped down when her family moved to Dorset. In 2013, Mr Holliday won a seat representing the Witney East ward on the council.

“Those early days were a fantastic learning curve,” said the 65-year-old. “To sit and watch how the councillors work.

“It’s not like running a business. The whole structure is different. I had always been interested in community, but there’s no use thinking this is what we should be doing without the vehicle to do it.”

A short while later, Mr Holliday was asked to be the deputy mayor and in May this year he became the mayor.

“For a Yorkshire boy done good it’s not bad,” he quipped.

When Mr Holliday became the town mayor he arrived with a complete change in structure. For years, the town’s mayor and chairman had also been the council leader. The roles have now been divided.

He said: “If you change the mayor every year it means you change the council’s business model every year, because every mayor has a different idea of how the council should be run.

“We changed it so that Toby Morris became the council leader while I became mayor and chairman. I thought that politics should be taken out of the mayor.

“The new structure frees the mayor up to meet people, deal with local businesses and hear the concerns of residents. The mayor shouldn’t be sat inside dealing with the budget, they should be out there in the town.”

Mr Holliday regards the role of mayor as the face of the town council, and sees it as his duty to ensure people of all ages throughout Witney are able to engage with town affairs.

Recently, a group of seven-year-olds from Witney Community Primary School were invited to sit in the council chambers where a little town meeting was mocked up.

All of the children have since written to Mr Holliday to thank him for the invitation – with most of them noting their particular interest in his gavel and mayoral chains.

“There’s 20 kids out there who now know what the mayor does and where the council sits," Mr Holliday said. "When somebody mentions a council meeting they have a clear image in their heads.

“One of them may go on to become a councillor. It opens the council up to the youth of today. “

It is this same attitude that left Mr Holliday so impressed with the turnout to this year’s Remembrance Sunday event.

Around 2,000 people from the town attended the event, which involved 500 children representing a range of local youth groups.

“These groups don’t have paid support. They’re all voluntary. When you get it that big it shows how hard our volunteers work," said Mr Holliday.

“The future of Witney is in our schools and in these strong, vibrant youth groups. If I don’t take an interest in then why should they take an interest in the town?”

Mr Holliday, who was recently made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, selected DITTO (Doing it Together to Overcome) as his mayoral charity. He now regularly spends time with the vulnerable and disabled people supported by the group, and stressed the importance of reaching out to those who may not otherwise interact with the council or councillors.

With Witney and the surrounding district of West Oxfordshire set for massive growth in terms of development over the next 15 years, there are a variety of big issues facing the town; for example, the ongoing problem of congestion on the A40, the road which connects Witney to Oxford.

Mr Holliday, who is a member of the Witney Oxford Transport Group, believes, like many others, that a rail link would solve the problem. Unlike many other commentators on the issue, however, Mr Holliday’s eyes are on the socio-economic aspects of introducing a new mode of transport.

He believes a 20 minute rail link between Witney and Oxford, as well as providing financial and environmental benefits, would make families happier by ensuring they spend more time at home with loved ones and less time stuck in traffic.

“I’m not looking at how we can have a quick fix in my life,” he said. “I’m looking to see how it can be fixed in my daughters’ life. I want them to be able to jump on a train and be in Oxford in 20 minutes.”

The resounding message from Mr Holliday is that his aim is to reach out to everybody in the community, no matter what their background or political affiliation.

“I don’t get involved in politics which makes me cross party. I can sit down with anybody and have an open, honest chat," he said.

“The mayor should be accessible to everyone, regardless of age, politics or whatever – everybody in the community. And I think the approach is working.”