A DEDICATED Fairtrade campaigner and long-serving member of Wyre Forest Liberal Democrats has died, aged 95.

Peter Grantham was the driving force behind Kidderminster gaining status as a Fairtrade town from the Fairtrade Foundation in 2007 after a three-year campaign.

He led the Kidderminster Fairtrade group for five years, overseeing the first successful status renewal in 2009, before retiring later that year, aged 83.

Current chairman Sue Cowen said: "Peter had such a pleasant and gently persuasive nature, no one could refuse him.

"He was quietly, but doggedly, passionate about fairness and equality of labour which drew him to support the Fairtrade campaign.

“It has largely been his inspiration that has kept this small band of campaigners working over the subsequent years to ensure the town maintains the status.”

Prior to many years of active service for Wyre Forest Liberal Democrats, Peter had been a member of the Liberal party.

In 1979, he was elected as a Liberal councillor for the then-Greenhill Ward in Kidderminster.

One of his successes of which he was most proud was persuading the council to plant crocuses on the embankment which separates the ring road from Anchorfields. The crocuses have become naturalised there.

Until two years ago, Peter was still delivering Focus newsletters to houses near his home in Baldwin Road.

Speaking on behalf of the ward councillors, Councillor Fran Oborski said: “Peter was a dedicated Liberal Democrat whose liberalism was an absolute part of who he was.

"We will miss him greatly.”