AT 23 years old Rocky Laybourn is the youngest councillor in the chamber but the recently-elected Athersley and New Lodge Reform member didn’t fall into politics by chance - it’s something he’s worked his whole life towards.

Politics is traditionally considered an older person’s game but it’s something that Rocky has been interested in for almost half his life.

The cabinet support member for the regeneration and assets portfolio has spent most of his life in Pudsey, Leeds, but has a strong affiliation to his new ward through his grandad.

And it was his grandad’s caravan where his passion for politics first began.

He told the Chronicle: “My earliest political memory was when my mum let me vote for Nick Clegg because I liked his tie apparently - I was eight or something like that.

“But when I first properly got into politics was when I was in my grandad’s caravan and Nigel Farage was on the TV.

“Obviously he’s a very controversial guy.

“My dad was talking about him and getting angry about it and I remember thinking ‘what’s this about?’

“I went online and went through the manifestos and I got into it from a really sort of UK national politics perspective.

“I got into debates, interviews and things like that.

“I concluded the only person that was being innovative, ambitious and honest was UKIP and Farage.

“I’ve stayed with that sort of genre ever since and it’s never really let me down.”

Rocky has been elected alongside a number of new youthful councillors - including Reform’s Luca Turner and Labour’s Brandon Green.

And the 23-year-old - who is a planner on Sheffield City Council - says it’s a role he has envisaged himself in for quite some time.

“I was reading the article last week about Councillor Brandon Green and one of the things he said was that he didn’t expect to be a councillor by the age of 25,” he added.

“I”m the opposite.

“I actually did expect it because I’ve been ambitious and training myself for it my whole life.

“It’s not necessarily that I expect to be a councillor because I’m perfect, it’s more I expected to be in a position where I’m politically engaged and getting involved.”

And he’s hoping to inspire more young people to get into politics - something he feels is already happening due to the internet.

He said: “I think a lot of people that get involved with politics now are very driven by the internet.

“Around 2016 you had the real sort of explosion of internet politics.

“There was lots of this backlash to progressive or woke politics and there was lots of debates online about that.

“People like Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro rose up and there was a real debating sphere online that I think got a lot of young people, such as myself, involved with politics.

“It’s good in the sense that it gets more people involved but it’s bad in that some of the issues they’re talking about are so abstract on a national or even international level - most people want to see change happening on the high street.

“So if the next generation of politicians are getting involved through what they think about Gaza, it might not be best for local politics which I think is a bit of a concern.”

Rocky is enjoying his role so far and he admits there’s no job too small for him.

“I really want to be a force for change,” he said.

“I want to change things locally and also nationally.

“But to get into politics you can’t just be a politician.

“You’ve got to be a real human being as well - you’ve got to bring something of value and that’s no-one else’s responsibility but your own.

“That would be my message to anyone thinking about getting into politics.

“Bring some value, be bold, put yourself forward and be impossibly ambitious because you might as well fly as high as you can.

“Fly to the sun - your wings will get burned eventually but at least you’ve seen what you can do.”