A FORMER councillor has been accused of trying to mislead civic planners over the failed Winter Gardens scheme.

Town centre ward councillor David Smith spoke out after planning agent Anthony Ramsden-Geary addressed Monday’s planning board meeting.

The Planning Solutions boss is agent for Winter Gardens applicants APB Park and Anthony P Bond, who have been refused outline permission for a £150million hotel, apartment and leisure complex.

Speaking in support of the scheme, Mr Ramsden told members he had just received a text message from Peter Tisdale, property director of THAT Group, stating that the company no longer objected to the Winter Gardens plans.

The London-based company, which had earlier voiced concern over the scheme, has been granted planning permission to build two landmarks hotel on the former Terrace Mount car-park site.

Cllr Smith told the Daily Echo he had contacted Mr Tisdale during the meeting and discovered that the text was “misleading” and the THAT Group was not supportive of the Winter Gardens application.

Later Cllr Smith urged planning board members to reject the application and start afresh, adding: “There is a lot about this application that does not sit comfortably with me.”

He told the Echo: “The information Mr Ramsden-Geary presented at the meeting was false and I exposed him.”

Planning board chairman David Kesley, who made the move to refuse permission for the Winter Gardens complex which won unanimous support, said: “We don’t want to be conned; it’s no good trying to pull the wool over our eyes. There wasn’t enough detail on such a major planning application; we owe it to the people of Bournemouth to get it right.”

But Mr Ramsden-Geary was unrepentant.

He said Cllr Smith was “trying to make a mountain out of a molehill”, adding: “It wasn’t misleading at all; Cllr Smith wasn’t aware of all the phone conversations and emails that had been exchanged during the past fortnight.”