Former Conservative councillors hits out at West Berkshire Council’s legal advice and ‘vexatious’ complaint against her

Claims have been made that “wrong advice” to “not vote” was given by West Berkshire Council's legal team – which led to a Tory councillor being kicked off six committees.

The claims, by former Conservative councillor for Hungerford and Kintbury, Claire Rowles, stem from her challenging the council on charging enormous planning bills to two residents – resulting in a complaint which was investigated at a cost to tax payers of £9,876.70.

Ms Rowles said was told she may have been involved in a conflict of interest stemming from a council ethics committee meeting in January last year at which she had championed two householders who have received a combined bill of almost £90,000 after incorrectly filling out paperwork before developing their properties.

She also claims a “vexacious” complaint was made about her conduct, following her attempts to access council reports about the cases.

"The complaint came from a man living in West London," she said. "He had also complained about two other Green and Lib Dem councillors. Why would a man living in London be so concerned about things happening in West Berkshire?"

The council said it is unable to comment on any specific complaint and also said: "Officers of the council will advise members regarding the councillors’ code of conduct.

“Where advice is provided however, the member will always be informed that it is a matter for them to determine what, if any, interest they may have. Officers would never ‘tell’ Members not to vote, as officers have no authority to do so."

"As part of a Code of Conduct complaint against a councillor, there is already the ability to consider whether a complaint is vexatious, including where this is raised by the member who is the subject of an allegation or investigation," said a spokesperson.

But Ms Rowles said she was not told what the conflict was.

"I didn't or certainly wasn't aware of anything that could be a conflict,” she added. “I was also accused of criticising the monitoring officer for not allowing me access to the report so my conduct was called into question too."

The two other complaints were dropped, but the one against Ms Rowles was taken a stage further, with the council appointing an external investigator.

"The process should have taken three months; instead it took a year,” said Ms Rowles. “That is just terrible. It was not pleasant, and very bad for mental health, just awful.”

The council said it was not in control of the time taken for various parties to respond.

"The council has no power to compel engagement with the process, and it does not accept that it has delayed any investigation,” said a council spokesperson. “We are always looking to complete these investigations/complaints as soon as we possibly can."

Ms Rowles says throughout that time, no one could tell her what the supposed conflict was.

"So I said to the then leader Lynne Doherty that perhaps I should step down from the planning committee as it met regularly and required a lot of voting,” she added. “I didn’t want to be voting on things if there was a possibility of a conflict.

"Instead, she pulled me off all the committees I was working on."

A year on from the complaint in March 2022, the investigation cleared Ms Rowles of any misconduct.

"It was not pleasant and I could not talk about it," she said.

"My residents should know what happened and this is all on the back of standing up for residents and challenging officers at the council, which is what we are here to do."

She has locked horns with the council's monitoring officers, saying that legal advice she was given was wrong. The council denies this.

"I felt like I was being punished by the council officers for challenging the CIL payments,” she said. “They even hired a QC to advise them on whether I could see the reports.

“And they still refused to let me see."

She says her beef is with the council legal team rather than her own party, although she said her then party leader, Lynne Doherty, had sided with the council officer's position at the time.

Ms Rowles stood down at the latest local election, with a number of other Tories throwing in the towel too, some citing the way Ms Rowles was treated as the reason. She hopes to stand again in future