A LEGAL ruling may be needed to decide who can be involved in the decision on Weymouth’s Peninsula development.

A group of residents claim the council’s own rules may have to bar strategic director Martin Hamilton and possibly some councillors from taking part in the debate and decision.

These claims have since been refuted by the council. See our story here 

The planning application for the leisure scheme on the former ferry terminal behind the Pavilion has been submitted to the planners in the name of Mr Hamilton.

Mick Burt and others have produced documents for the borough council which they suggest should at least rule Mr Hamilton out of taking any further part in the process of developing the site.

Ironically the guidance notes they produced for borough councillors were written by Mr Hamilton.

In the notes about conduct of members and officers in deciding planning applications the guidance reads: “No member or officer who submits a planning application should participate in the decision making process relating to that application.

“No member or officer who acts as an agent for people pursuing a planning matter with the council should take part in the decision making process for that proposal, nor seek in any way to influence it.”

Mr Burt told the borough council’s scrutiny and performance committee: “To me this is a breach of the constitution.”

Committee chairman Cllr Andy Blackwood thanked Mr Burt for the documents saying: “You have raised some very important questions and you deserve an answer. It is beholden of us to get those answers.”