Deputy mayor of Basingstoke Cllr Phil Heath has lodged complaints against two fellow councillors involved in a breach of conduct allegation against him.
The independent councillor appeared before the council’s standards panel last week.
Panel members found that during a meeting of the council’s community and wellbeing committee in November last year Cllr Heath acted disrespectfully towards the committee’s chairman, Cllr Robert Taylor.
He was instructed at the hearing to formally apologise to the committee and Cllr Taylor.
Cllr Heath said this week that he will appeal against the ruling.
The hearing was conducted by two non-councillors, Keith Bastin and Elizabeth Harris, and Burghclere, Highclere and St Mary Bourne councillor Horace Mitchell.
Cllr Heath lodged his complaints against community and wellbeing committee chairman Cllr Taylor and standards panel member Cllr Mitchell on Monday.
He claims that as a Conservative member, Cllr Mitchell, should not have sat in judgement upon him.
The deputy mayor told the Basingstoke Observer: “I did not want Cllr Mitchell sitting on the panel as a member of the Conservative party that had made the complaint about me and because of personal animosity between us.
“It was wrong of him not to declare an interest as a member on the panel.”
During the hearing, Cllr Mitchell insisted that he was able to be objective and fair.
The deputy mayor said he had issues with Cllr Taylor for making the complaint against him in the first place.
He said: “I lodged the complaint against Robert Taylor for wasting taxpayers’ money and over-emphasising the severity of his complaint against me and for not informing the panel that all he wanted was an apology.”
Cllr Taylor made the complaint that prompted the inquiry after the committee meeting in November, which he said he was forced to adjourn because Cllr Heath would not limit his speech to four minutes and would not be quiet when asked.
Cllr Heath told the Basingstoke Observer that he is prepared to drop his complaints against the two councillors if they apologise to him, the public and the council.
Cllr Heath is due to face a further breach of conduct allegation over remarks he made to the press relating to the council’s handling of the snow crisis last winter.
