I am one of the two councillors who submitted a complaint against Cllr Mike Trevorrow and would like to respond to his letter, Chronicle, July 14.

He said that we had only one contribution to make to Kingswear village life prior to becoming councillors which was to oppose the playground. This is not true – we had both been very active volunteering in many areas of village life.

Cllr Trevorrow has belittled the complaint, and said it was a waste of money. We remain very hurt at the way we have been treated, and the unacceptable practices which occurred in council meetings.

In accordance with procedure, the complaint was made to South Hams District Council monitoring officer, who referred it following consideration by an independent person for investigation by an officer from Cornwall Council, Simon Mansell.

Cllr Trevorrow, who was chairing the meeting, has presented the complaint as ”essentially allowing an item to be bought up in item three instead of item nine.”

This is a misrepresentation. In his report, Mr Mansell said Cllr Trevorrow showed “a disregard for local government procedures by allowing a petition (impugning our integrity) to be read out.”

Mr Mansell also said that Cllr Trevorrow “failed to support us and ensure inaccuracies in the petition were corrected” and to distance the parish council from the allegations contained within it.

He thought that there was a “seemingly deliberate attempt to deter us from voting at an early stage of the meeting.”

Mr Mansell’s report also contained serious concerns about the undermining of democracy and free speech. His report stated that “the methods employed by those who support the playground are not in keeping with the current practices of local democracy.”

He also stated “there seems to be an active wish to stifle any opposing views”.

Cllr Trevorrow has been found to be in breach of the Code of Conduct:

4(a) You must treat others with respect and courtesy.

5(h) You must not conduct yourself in a manner or behave in such a way as to give a reasonable person the impression that you have bought your office into disrepute.

We are disappointed that Cllr Trevorrow has refused to apologise to us as recommended by the hearing and Mr Mansell’s report.

Copies of this report have been circulated to members of Kingswear Parish Council and are available upon request.