Councillor loses role over leaflet row (From Brentwood Weekly News)

Councillor loses role over leaflet row

10:48am Thursday 2nd July 2009

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A LIB Dem councillor has been fired from his post as a panel chairman after a row about election leaflets in the run up to last month’s county elections.

Barry Aspinell has been stripped of his position as chairman of Brentwood Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Panel after a vote of no confidence was approved by members at last week’s heated full council meeting.

Mr Aspinell, who is still councillor for Pilgrims Hatch, was voted off the panel after council leader Louise McKinlay moved a motion of no confidence in the opposition member.

The move comes amid controversy surrounding election literature sent out by Mr Aspinell in the run-up to county council elections last month, at which Mr Aspinell took the Brentwood North seat from Conservative Phil Baker by a 301 majority.

The Conservatives have said his election material makes false statements about the council which worried and misled voters.

The Weekly News recently reported a complaint from a resident had led to an investigation into Mr Aspinell’s conduct by the council’s standards board.

In his pamphlet, Mr Aspinell claimed Brentwood Council did not have its own chief executive, planning department, or highways department.

Mrs McKinlay said: “I had an unprecedented number of people who contacted me about this, who were genuinely concerned about the claims Mr Aspinell made.

“We even had people into the Town Hall to show them the departments do exist.

“In light of this I didn’t feel we could have a chairman of a scrutiny panel.”

During the meeting, leader of the Lib Dems David Kendall spoke out against the motion and called it trial by “kangaroo court”.

He tried to delay the vote until after the standards board investigation had been concluded.

He said: “He’s been treated unfairly. I felt the standard board was the best place for his conduct to be to be looked at, not in council.

“Barry had already said if the board found he had done anything wrong then he would stand down.”

The council voted to replace Mr Aspinell with Cllr David Minns, a previous chairman of the committee.

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