Former East Devon District Council leader Paul Diviani has died following a long illness.

Mr Diviani joined East Devon District Council in 1999, becoming leader in 2011, a role he held up until he stepped down in 2018. He had also served on Devon County Council, representing Honiton St Paul's, as well as being a board member of the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership, chair of the Blackdown Hills Area of Natural Beauty, and numerous other public service or community roles.

He joined East Devon Council at the same time as the district's current Tory leader, Cllr Philip Skinner, a friend both in and out of politics, who paid a heartfelt tribute to him on Friday.

"Paul Diviani was a very selfless man," said Cllr Skinner. "He was a man who was never critical of other people; he was more concerned about doing good things.

"He had a very good insight to vision work, and he was very much a strategic thinker. Strategic, not just in the planning process, but strategic in the way that the council should operate, and the way that it should run.

"He balanced providing good services but at the same time of course driving our economic agenda, which is the agenda I very much wish to promote myself."

Cllr Skinner said that Cllr Diviani was "instrumental" in the creation of the Greater Exeter Strategic plan – although the council eventually pulled out of the proposed arrangement with other neighbouring councils in 2020 – and he praised his ability to "see the bigger picture."

The Conservative leader for East Devon describing Cllr Diviani as a "lovely, lovely man."