THE Greens have revealed they will be fielding a new candidate for the Totnes Town Council seat at the centre of the Green Party in-fighting row which, it has been claimed, turned the last election attempt into a pantomime.

Meanwhile Richard Fairfax, the 58-year-old Totnes candidate, who at the 11th hour backed out of the council seat he had already won, has revealed he has stood down as his party's local election agent.

Mr Fairfax declared: "I am currently in the process of stepping away from the Green Party."

However he will be continuing to act as election agent for Lydia Somerville, the Green Party's prospective candidate who is after Tory Anthony Steen's parliamentary seat, along with six other hopefuls.

The political activist, who is a leading figure in the South Devon Green Party, now the biggest Green Party branch in the country, said he had resigned from his post with the local party.

He added: "There has been far too much damage done to me and my family. I don't want to be involved any more."

Mr Fairfax was the South Devon Green Party agent who helped get Paula Black elected in Totnes as the first Devon County Council Green.

But when he was all set to take a seat on Totnes Town Council after becoming the only person to stand in the by-election, he suddenly pulled out claiming cryptically that he would not take a town council seat while his fellow party member Paula Black remained a Green Party county councillor.

He has since refused to elaborate on what he meant and Mrs Black has claimed she has no idea what he was talking about.

Totnes has been forced to organise another election after Mr Fairfax backed out just three hours before the withdrawal deadline.

Furious Totnes town councillors likened the episode to a 'pantomime' and warned that re-running the election was only going to mean more bills for the taxpayers.

New candidates have been given until noon next Friday to get their nomination papers in to South Hams Council's election office.

If more than one person stands as a candidate this time around, the election will be on Thursday, March 11.

Mrs Somerville revealed that the Greens will be putting forward another candidate in the election which effectively they have already won once.

But she said she could not say who it would be until after a meeting the party is planning to hold on Monday.

She confirmed Mr Fairfax was standing down from the election agent post but would continue as her agent in her election fight to get to Parliament.

"He is part of the campaign team," she said.

She also refused to comment on the exact reasons behind Mr Fairfax's controversial decision to abandon his town council sea but added: "We all respect the difficult decision that Richard has made. We are moving forward and addressing this internally. It is a Green Party matter and we are addressing it in our own way."