IT has taken over a year to complete and cost taxpayers more than £50,000.

But any celebrations at the conclusion of the review of Bournemouth council’s constitution were shortlived when council leader Peter Charon said: “Quite frankly, it’s already out of date.”

He deferred any discussion of the 200-page report, sparking a row with two of the councillors who had overseen the review.

Conservative leader Cllr Charon said the Tories decided at their group meeting two days earlier that it would be premature to discuss the new constitution ahead of the Government’s Localism Bill being passed.

He said: “The bill is far-reaching, with scores and scores of initiatives, and the view of my group is that quite frankly, by the time these papers have been printed, they would be out of date.

“Events have overtaken us to a large degree. If this paper had come forward six or nine months ago things would be different.”

But Labour Cllr Ben Grower, the chair of the group, said the constitution could have been amended later, if needed.

“One day perhaps common courtesy might return to this council and you could inform members of the group, or at least the chairman, what the decision of the Conservatives is,” he said.

And Independent Cllr Ron Whittaker, who was also on the panel, accused Cllr Charon of shelving it because it changed the call-in procedure to make it easier for opposition councillors to scrutinise decisions.

“It would make life a little bit easier for the smaller group – I know you don’t particularly like small groups but I think that’s very unfair,” he said.

A legal consultant hired by the council has spent the past year working on the review. The total payment for November 2010 to November 2011 was £53,279.87, £20,000 of which came from the council’s risk management funds and the rest from underspends in the democratic services team budget.

Kevin Neale, democratic services manager, said the new version of the constitution was a vast improvement.

He said: “Some of the provisions in the Localism Bill will need to be included in the new constitution document which is why cabinet agreed that it would be prudent to defer further work until after the provisions of the Localism Bill have filtered down which is likely to be over the next few months.

“However the work produced to date has not been wasted as it will still be used as the basis for the Council’s new constitution document.”