A BROUGHTON Councillor stormed out of a parish council meeting last Tuesday as tensions in the village reached breaking point.

Harry Paul made the protest at a highly-charged meeting which saw Broughton Parish Council defend its decision over housing development.

The ‘Affordable Housing for Broughton’ group, accuses the council of ignoring villager’s wishes for a small affordable development in favour of a much larger mixed development – a decision which resulted in the resignation of four councillors.

During the meeting, which was attended by over 70 people, newly elected chairman Ed James read out a correspondence letter which showed support for the council’s decision.

Mr Paul subsequently stormed out of the meeting claiming this was unfair “There were 60 people who wrote in to the council and at least 30 letters challenging them, many of whom were never given an opportunity to express their concerns,” he said “There were four letters supporting the parish council and instead of reading these well thought out letters that people had submitted they read out a letter that was very supportive of them.

“By that time I had had enough. I just thought it was ridiculous and completely undemocratic.”

During the past few months the village has been split over the council’s decision to hold talks with developers over a site on School Lane.

Some residents felt that this had gone against results of a Parish Council survey which conducted in February.

Results showed that the most popular site was the cemetery field with 36 per cent of the vote while the council-favoured School Lane received 32 per-cent.

The Affordable Housing for Broughton group also claim that 40 per cent of the village was in favour of an affordable-only scheme and that the proposals for School Lane would only provide 11 affordable homes out of 28 proposed.

However, the council hit back at suggestions they had ignored the survey results.

New parish chairman Ed James – who succeeded Tim Jenner who quit the council over the planning issue – told the meeting: “It has been a difficult and divisive few weeks for our lovely community since the parish council last met.

“In our last meeting the decision was made to negotiate with two of the potential sites because, having listened to the evidence from the consultation we have undertaken over the last two years, it was clear that both sites were offering potentially too many houses and that this it was not the wish of some in the village.

“To be clear this decision was to look at the numbers only with the developers, it was not a decision to move forward with a site.

“No vote has been taken as to which, if any site, the council would recommend for a housing development and no sites have been ruled out yet.

He added: “Some have accused us of moving too slowly, some too fast and making the wrong decision.

“To that I say, we are in the middle of this difficult process, and trying to move forwards with integrity and the village’s wishes as always in the foremost of our minds.”

Some in the village are still unhappy with the outcome of the meeting including vice-chairman of the ‘Affordable Housing for Broughton’ group, George Gammer.

He said: “We are disappointed as we want the council to listen to all of the views expressed in the survey, which they themselves commissioned, and perhaps to consider our idea for using the plot of parish owned land.”

The debate will continue long into next month as the Council have recently announced that a by-election will be held on December 11 to replace the councillors that have resigned during this turbulent period.