A LIBERAL Democrat county councillor has been picked to stand for Parliament at the next general election – in a Devon constituency.

Kirsten Johnson, who represents Wheatley, will stand for the Lib Dems in the North Devon seat whenever the next general election is held.

Dr Johnson, a pianist, said she will remain in Oxfordshire for the time being and will stay on as a councillor – something she said she takes ‘very seriously’.

North Devon has switched between the Conservatives or the Liberal Party/Liberal Democrats over recent decades.

Dr Johnson told the Lib Dem Voice website: “I am delighted to have been selected for such a winnable seat and to be coming to such a wonderful part of the country.

“It is a big challenge but the Conservative Government is failing North Devon – whose economy and public services are suffering as a result of their policies – and I am determined to win the seat back again.”

North Devon was held in the 1960s by Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, who was famously accused of hiring a hitman to kill his gay lover Norman Scott, but later acquitted.

In 2015 current Conservative MP Peter Heaton-Jones won the seat for his party from the Lib Dems. His majority at the 2017 general election was 4,332.

Alan Rennles, the chairman of North Devon Lib Dems, said Dr Johnson impressed with her ‘campaigning verve’.

Dr Johnson was born in America and became a British citizen in 2002. She stood for the Lib Dems in Oxford East at 2017’s general election.