Tribunal decides John Beesley did not breach councillors’ code of conduct (From Bournemouth Echo)

Tribunal decides John Beesley did not breach councillors’ code of conduct

1:50pm Friday 11th March 2011 in News By Timothy John

A TRIBUNAL has decided that the deputy leader of Bournemouth council did not breach the councillors’ code of conduct.

At a public hearing held this morning at Bournemouth’s Hallmark Hotel, Cllr John Beesley strongly denied breaching the code by not declaring a prejudicial interest to the council’s planning board, which he chaired, when considering applications involving the Planning Solutions company of his friend and former councillor, Tony Ramsden.

The tribunal said it was satisfied on the basis of the evidence before it that the relationship between councillor Beesley and Mr Ramsden was not of a kind to give rise to prejudicial interest.

Earlier, Cllr Beesley told the tribunal he had followed the advice of council officers and declared a personal interest when considering applications in which Planning Solutions was the applicant or agent.

The three-man panel made the decision following submissions made by Cllr Beesley, his barrister James Goudie QC and by Bournemouth council’s representative, Claire Lefort.

Miss Lefort told the tribunal Cllr Beesley’s “close personal association” with Mr Ramsden, whose son Archie is the councillor’s godson, merited the declaration of a prejudicial interest.

The tribunal has followed a formal complaint from Liberal Democrat councillor Roger West, which sparked an investigation and a report from Meic Sullivan-Gould, the independent investigator appointed in the former council leader Cllr Stephen Macloughlin’s computer pornography hearing.