South Oxfordshire councillors suspended from Conservative group

John Cotton, council leader until last April, was one of a handful of Tory councillors to vote against the authority’s Local Plan, which was passed in December.

As part of the plan, housing could be built on six sites on Oxford’s Green Belt as part of 28,500 new homes in the district by 2034.

Elaine Hornsby, Tony Harbour, Imran Lokhon, Elizabeth Gillespie and Sue Lawson have also been suspended.

Mr Cotton, who represents Berinsfield, attacked the Conservatives’ council leader Jane Murphy, claiming the suspensions would disrupt the party’s run-up to May’s local elections.

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District council leader Jane Murphy.

He said: “Jane clearly lacks confidence in her ability to lead the group: lashing out at such a significant number of colleagues so close to the elections is just bizarre.”

Some councillors who voted against the Local Plan, including Mr Cotton’s former deputy leader John Walsh, have not been suspended.

Mrs Gillespie, who represents Garsington and Horspath, said: “In party politics they expect one to toe the line but for me the Local Plan is far too important to do that.

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“I have chosen to stand against the group on this and am quite prepared to face the consequences. We need the right plan for the right housing in the right places. The Local Plan does not give us that.”

She said she had been ‘inundated’ with support since news broke of her suspension on Friday. She added she could stand as an independent if barred from standing as a Conservative in the local elections.

It is understood some of the suspended councillors attended a Conservative group meeting on Thursday – but were asked to leave.

The suspensions make up about a fifth of the council’s Conservative group, which had 32 councillors of the council’s 36 last week.

The Save Culham Green Belt committee hold a rally against plans to build new homes on the green belt. Villagers gather on Culham Village Green to create a symbol in defiance against proposed developments..The local children and villagers say no to the pla

Villagers in Culham protest against South Oxfordshire District Council housing plans for their area.

Mr Harbour, who represents Didcot North East but will not fight May’s election, said he was unhappy with the ‘draconian’ way suspensions had been issued.

He said: “My vote (on the Local Plan) was a vote of conscience. I feel we’re building on too much green space as it is.

“I was under the assumption it was a free vote and not whipped.”

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Mr Harbour said he worried Mrs Murphy and her deputy, Felix Bloomfield, were ‘unable to hold a debate on the Local Plan without a written script by Mark Stone (SODC’s chief executive) or Ian Hudspeth (Oxfordshire County Council’s leader)’.

But he said contact between Conservative councillors and the cabinet has been so minimal since the summer that he ‘didn’t know what he would be missing out on’ if he was permanently excluded from the group.

David Nimmo Smith, the chairman of the Conservatives’ SODC group, said: “Under the group rules an investigation is being carried out. It would not be appropriate to discuss this outside the group – and be accused of prejudicing the investigation – until the investigation has been completed.”