A Fife councillor has been banned from planning meetings for two months after failing to declare an interest in the creation of a new Madras College.
St Andrews Labour member Brian Thomson took part in a public consultation and voted on a controversial planning application despite the fact members of his family were part of a group lobbying to have the school built on a single site at Pipeland.
The Standards Commission for Scotland has now ruled Mr Thomson breached the Councillors’ Code of Conduct by not declaring an interest and withdrawing from the planning process.
The decision follows a hearing in Glenrothes.
Mr Thomson has accepted he did not act in accordance with the councillors’ code and should have declared a non-financial interest.
He has apologised for his failure.
However, he insisted the breaches were due to a misinterpretation of the code rather than malicious intent and that there had been no personal gain.
The Madras saga sparked deep divisions in St Andrews, with campaign group Stepal launching a legal bid to prevent the new secondary school being built on the greenbelt at Pipeland.
Opposing group Parent Voice, of which Mr Thomson is a former member, argued the site on the town’s southern tip was the only suitable location for the building.
Members of Mr Thomson’s family are still involved with Parent Voice.
The Standards Commission said a number of complaints had been received about the councillor, a number of which were dismissed.
A spokesman said: “Essentially the complaints related to the fact that Councillor Thomson failed to declare his non-financial interests in respect of a lobbying group which involved members of his family.
“The panel decided that he should have declared these interests and, as a consequence, should have withdrawn and taken no further part in the planning process after it had formally commenced.
“His actions were found to be contrary to the councillors’ code which is issued by Scottish ministers in the promotion of ethical standards.”
Mr Thomson said: “I took the view that because the pre-determination meeting was an information-gathering exercise and not a decision-making meeting, and because any interaction with Parent Voice was prior to the submission of the planning application and had no link whatsoever to the planning application I did not need to declare an interest.
“However I now recognise that I did breach sections of the code.”