Is this the most powerful tory in britain?

The council's leader is pointing to the words: "The council has a role in creating a society with a sense of purpose and belonging, fostering independence and empowering people to be responsible for their own lives, their families and their communities."

This, says Bruce-Lockhart, is what affordable housing is all about. Of the 578,000 homes in Kent, 26% are classed as affordable, of which only 4% are shared-ownership properties. Bruce-Lockhart would like to see this proportion grow. "It's very important in the South-east that you have enough joint-equity housing to let people get onto the property ladder and own something of their own," he says.

This emphasis on property ownership is just one of a series of ticks on Bruce-Lockhart's checklist of traditional Tory values. Briefly, he is Eurosceptic, in favour of section 28, and a vociferous critic of the government's asylum policies. The council he runs is a big hitter: the UK's largest county council, Kent's annual budget exceeds £1bn and it has 30,000 employees and 1.3 million residents. It is also one of only 22 councils rated "excellent" by the Audit Commission, and Bruce-Lockhart is vice-chairman of the Local Government Association and was knighted last year for services to local government. Newspapers have called him "the most powerful Tory in Britain". Ann Widdecombe, MP for Kent constituency Maidstone and the Weald, is a big fan.

"I've known Sandy for a long time, and he's always impressed me a great deal," she says. "His greatest virtue is that he never panics – I've never seen him in a flap about anything. He brings a tremendous amount of common sense to issues like asylum."

Asylum is a big issue for Kent's coastal towns, but national press coverage misrepresented his views, says Bruce-Lockhart. "I never used 'swamped' to describe the situation in Dover and Folkestone," he says. "I simply wrote a confidential letter to the home secretary expressing my concern that Kent's asylum seekers had risen from 50 to 12,000 in three years." He is angry that the sensitive nature of the debate makes it difficult to put forward reasoned arguments in favour of tighter laws.

Political correctness, he says, is "modern conformism, which says we all have to fit into a single mould". He cites as an example the South-East of England Regional Assembly, on which he sits. "They decided my replacement for when I was absent had to be from an ethnic minority – but ethnic minorities only make up 3% of Kent's population."

Bruce-Lockhart had a late but rapid ascent to the top of local government's greasy pole, entering politics only at the age of 47. As well as wanting to make a contribution to society, he got into local government, he says, because he was impressed by the commitment he saw to public service.

We need funding supported by the Treasury for roads,Thames crossings,better railways, better health facilities, leisure, culture and so on

He combines his old-style Toryism with modern image-consciousness. The chief executive of one Kent borough says: "His real talent is in attracting and generating publicity for big issues in Kent. If you stopped most people on the street and showed them a photo of him, most of them would know who he was. That's unusual in a local politician."

There are certainly plenty of big issues in the county for Bruce-Lockhart to deal with. As well as the increase of asylum seekers to its deprived coastal towns, Kent is at the heart of the government's drive to build more homes in the South-east. On this issue, too, Bruce-Lockhart comes back to the council manifesto's pledge to "empower people to be responsible for their own lives".

It is this, he says,that led the council to challenge planning policy. In May 2001, Kent formally rejected government targets that required 1000 more houses to be built than the 4700 the council had allowed for. "We had some modest discussions with the government", says Bruce-Lockhart, choosing his words with care. "Then, in July 2002, the deputy prime minister made a speech in the House of Commons where he insisted that all county councils adopt the planning guidance. Because it was a statement of policy in Parliament, we couldn't mount a legal challenge."

In terms of the Communities Plan, Bruce-Lockhart sees little point in slavishly building to meet government targets if the resulting homes are not backed up by proper community infrastructure: "The Kent Thames Gateway, for example, has in the past two years only built three-quarters of the current Structure Plan's houses – a target we ourselves laid down in 1995. Quite simply, the land was there, the Structure Plan allocation was there, but the money for community infrastructure (from the government) was not. If we're building 80,000 houses – the size of Swindon or Reading – we want cast-iron guarantees of substantial new services funding across Kent."

Talks to get this money are in progress, and there are signs of a thaw in relations with the government. "We're really pleased with our Communities Plan discussions with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister," says Bruce-Lockhart. "They're convinced that we need funding supported by the Treasury, which would bring money for roads, Thames crossings, better railways, better health facilities, leisure, culture and so on." 

The fact that Bruce-Lockhart fights for his constituency's corner deserves admiration, whether or not you agree with his politics.