ANOTHER quarrel has broken out at Kingswear Parish Council with one councillor resigning at a meeting that was hoped would bring peace to the village.

A letter of apology from a group of residents to three councillors was not accepted because it had not been signed.

And Cllr Elizabeth Essex, who had earlier threatened them with legal action, ended up walking out.

Relationships have been strained in Kingswear since September when a petition was sent by 33 residents to councillors Essex, Jan Henshall and Lucy Payne, accusing them of acting in their own self interests and not those of parishioners.

But last week the petition signatories wrote offering an apology to end the lengthy disagreement.

However, when the matter came before Tuesday’s meeting of the parish council, Cllr Essex refused to accept the letter because it had not been hand signed.

One of the petition organisers, Penny Noble, confirmed the letter was from all the names printed at the bottom. She said not everybody had been available to sign the letter in the time available before it was sent out, although signatures could be made available to the parish clerk if requested.

But Cllr Essex said the correspondence, marked ‘private and confidential’, had no address at the top for a reply and could have come from anyone.

‘I personally feel it cannot be dealt with,’ she said. ‘It was an unsigned letter. I will make a statement about it once it is signed.’

For more on this story, see this week’s Dartmouth Chronicle