TEMPERS flared during angry exchanges at Minehead Town Council last Thursday after Cllr Terry Venner accused the council of failing to declare a payment it had made in December.

He told the mayor, Cllr Jean Parbrook: “I have now asked you three times if any extra payments were made in December, other than those on the list, and you said no extra payments were made.”

But she told him: “You can stamp all night if you want”, saying she had already written to him on the matter and did not intend to discuss it further.

Cllr Venner responded: “You said no extra payments were made but I now have evidence that there was one, on December, 19 , which was not declared.”

The mayor told him: “You are talking about a staffing issue and you know you can’t do that in front of the press”, accusing him of “pure, unadulterated grandstanding”.

Cllr Venner said he thought the matter should go to the external auditor and added: “If you don’t like what I am doing, why don’t you call the police?”

The two councillors had clashed earlier in the meeting after the mayor had finished making her announcements.

Cllr Venner said he wanted to raise a point of order concerning a letter the mayor had written to the Free Press about the town’s public toilets.

But Cllr Parbrook said: “This has nothing to do with the mayor’s announcements” and ruled Cllr Venner out of order.

When the council was considering a number of risk assessment updates, Cllr John Malin said a review of the council’s standing orders was overdue.

The clerk, Sue Sanders, said standing orders had been revised in 2012 and 2015 but Cllr Malin said small revisions to certain orders were not the same as a full review of them: “They were updated, although maybe not to your satisfaction,”Cllr Parbrook said.

In a discussion on nine proposed changes to the council’s financial regulations, as recommended by the National Association of Local Councils, Cllr Malin asked the clerk to clarify the legal standing of the regulations.

The clerk said Cllr Malin could have a written reply but she would not give a verbal answer at the meeting: “This is not on the agenda. I am not answering questions now.”

Cllr Malin said he did not acccept that answer and thought the clerk should be able to give clarification.

“You can ‘not accept’ all you like,” said Cllr Parbrook. “We are only dealing with the revisions clearly stated on the agenda.”

“A review is a review” replied Cllr Malin. “Our standing orders say we should have one every year.”

The mayor replied: “I’ve tried to be patient with you. You have been offered a written answer. This is blatant time-wasting.

“I have my own interpretation of ‘legal standing’ but I am not going to give it to you now. You could find this out yourself.”

The press and public were asked to leave the meeting before the final item due to “the confidential nature of the business” to be discussed.

The Free Press has since learned that this involved an alleged breach of standing orders by Cllrs Venner and Malin and a recommendation to ask them to apologise for their actions.

Cllr Malin told the Free Press that neither he nor Cllr Venner had been given prior warning of the matter and both had refused to apologise and, after what he described as “a stream of invective and ad hoc heckling”, they had left the meeting. He said another councillor had already walked out.

Cllr Malin described the proceedings as “a kangaroo court” and said he understood the remaining councillors continued to discuss the matter for some time afterwards but he had no idea of the outcome.

“I was surprised at the decision not to allow any discussion of our financial regulations,” he added.

“The agenda item clearly instructed us to review and revise them - the nine revisions in front of us merely being those passed on by the National Association of Local Councils.

“The council’s own standing orders clearly state that financial regulations shall be reviewed once a year and yet they haven’t been since September 2014.

“This is a most unsatisfactory state of affairs for a council with cash deposits of over £1 million in the bank.”

Contacted by the Free Press, Cllr Parbrook said: “The only reason the council went into a closed session was because county council elections are looming and we were mindful of the need to comply with the rules of purdah.

“There is an obligation on all councils to be very careful not to do anything which could influence the public in any way during an election period.

“Under these circumstances I don’t think it would be fair to comment.”