MINEHEAD’S mayor resigned from the town council nearly two weeks ago, but has sworn fellow councillors to secrecy over the decision and the reasons for his departure, the Free Press has learned.

Andrew Kingston-James circulated an email to councillors telling them that his resignations as mayor and a councillor would take immediate effect, but his reasons must stay strictly private and confidential.

It is understood that the resignation will come up for discussion at a meeting of the full council on March 28. In the meantime the Free Press understands that the deputy mayor, Cllr Toni Bloomfield, will take on the mayoral duties until the annual election in May.

This week Mr Kingston-James, an HR consultant, declined to make any comment, but his partner, town councillor Mark Kingston-James said: “Any reason for Andy’s resignation is strictly private and confidential.”

Told that the matter was in the public interest, he responded: “I will now deal with that data breach via the clerk and our legal representative.”

Andrew Kingston-James had been a councillor for Minehead’s North Ward since 2017. An Independent, he had previously represented the Conservative party and later joined the Lib Dems. His term as mayor has been dogged by controversy since he was elected last May after two years as deputy mayor.

Last October, some councillors unsuccessfully demanded his resignation over payments claimed to total £34,000 for “administrative help and advice” during the council’s three-year dispute with former town clerk Jenny Bashford. The council won the case at an employment tribunal.

The matter was first raised in August by Cllr Michael Burke who said he disagreed with paying councillors “tens of thousands of pounds of ratepayers’ money.” He said it had been agreed to pay the mayor an honorarium for loss of earnings while assisting in the case.

“Honorarium means a token thank-you, but this compensation is excessive,” he claimed.

Last October, two councillors - former mayor Paul Bolton and Emily Jones - resigned over the matter after telling the mayor: “It’s time to go.” They both said they would offer themselves for re-adoption if he agreed to stand down.

In January this year Cllr Burke also resigned from the council on the issue saying: “This is a horrifying mess. There is no way I can continue as a councillor if Cllr Kingston-James remains mayor.

“Claims were made for huge sums of cash, with little or no paper receipts as proof, but were voted for and approved by a majority.”

Mr Bolton said at the time: “I can’t say the payment was completely unjustified but what I am saying is that there are people in this town at the moment who are having to make the choice between eating and heating and it is not acceptable to use that amount of taxpayers’ money in this way.

“When this dispute began, we agreed to pay the mayor an honorarium which we thought would be around £4-5,000 but it soon became obvious it was going to be a lot more than that.”

Mr Bolton also called for the council’s external auditor to investigate payments made to the mayor and for a Freedom of Information request for details of his expenses.

The mayor took three months’ sick leave and was unavailable for comment, but a town council spokesperson said the employment tribunal work undertaken by the mayor “was above and beyond the role of councillor and in recognition of this and the volume of work involved, the council agreed that he should be awarded an honorarium.”

The council later approved a payment of £18,633. Earlier, other smaller payments had been approved which brought the total to around £34,000.

In a statement to the Free Press after the meeting, Mr Kingston-James said that all payments had been approved by democratic majority votes, a full breakdown of costs had been provided and all expenditure was discussed and approved by internal and external auditors as providing value for money.

This week, the Free Press was told by several sources that Mr Kingston-James claimed that, despite winning the employment case, he had suffered both personally and professionally due to the actions of some councillors and the way they had used the media to attack him.