An outspoken councillor deselected by the Labour Party is hoping to hold onto his seat in Kilburn next month – as an independent.

Cllr John Duffy, a thorn in the side of Labour council leaders, says he is pushing for people in Kilburn to get the full value of the multi-million-pound “community impact levy” money that is “owed to them”. CIL is cash coughed up by developers to mitigate the impact of building works.

Money the ward received from the huge South Kilburn regeneration project over the last four years is £197,957.78 for “neighbourhood CIL”, which covers one-off community grants, and £1,055,774.81 for “strategic CIL” – which John said should be ringfenced.

Lifelong Kilburn man John said: “More than £2m has been given to South Kilburn because they were living in a building site. Instead of giving it to South Kilburn and ring-fencing it for South Kilburn the council has decided to steal it, in my opinion.

“They’ve said Kilburn can bid for the strategy CIL, but everyone can bid for it – so Kilburn will lose out big time. They’ll be lucky to get half of that money.”

He added: “Areas in the north will get our CIL while we paid for that through noise, pollution, parking, breathing in filthy air from lorries coming back and forth.”

The 63-year-old was born in St Julian’s Road and educated in nearby Catholic schools after which he went to work in waste management.

He joined the Labour Party in 1983, aged 29. He was voted in to serve Gladstone Park in 1986, Willesden Green in 1994 and Roe Green in 1998.

In 2000 he went to work under Ken Livingstone at the GLA with roles including environment and transport.

In 2014 he “came home” when elected to serve Kilburn but was deselected this year – over, he says, his vocal campaigning over suspected asbestos found in Paddington Cemetery (see last week’s Times).

His personal highlights include spotting a flaw in council documents that would have seen surplus “green tax” go to a private operator, as reported by this paper at the time, instead of the council. The document was re-worded.