The new mayor of Dartford hopes to use his role to encourage businesses to offer greater support to charities.

Cllr Avtar Sandhu MBE became mayor yesterday and told the Messenger he was eager to get started.

He said: “I’m looking forward to this position. I think this kind of opportunity doesn’t arrive every day.”

A Dartford boy, Cllr Sandhu was deputy mayor while Cllr Patsy Thurlow was mayor for the past year, and is the Conservative representative for Newtown ward.

Cllr Sandhu’s hard work was rewarded with an MBE in 2009 for his services to the community.

Politics run in the family – his father Darshan Sandhu MBE was a passionate Conservative supporter and placed a floral garland around the neck of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher when she visited Dartford in 1985.

A former student at Leigh Technology Academy, then called The Downs School, Cllr Sandhu has been a Dartford councillor since 2011 and was elected to serve Dartford North East in the Kent County Council elections in 2009.

He also runs a business in the area, Amar Hall a hospitality centre in East Hill, and is a former director of Dartford FC.

The father-of-two is passionate about businesses in the borough and wants them to work with charities.

He said: “I would like to see, out of the charities I’m focused on, if I could create a link and see how I could promote them to local businesses.

“I’m a local boy, bred and established in Dartford.

“I think it gives me the opportunity – with the mayor’s press backing – to promote local business to the max.

“Dartford is as good as any other community but Dartford is within my heart.”