A ROW between a town council and one of its members over a vote to build a new community hall is rumbling on ahead of a public exhibition this week.

In April the Evesham Journal reported that Pershore Town Council slammed Councillor Charles Tucker after he refused to accept a vote to build a new community hall on the cemetery field off Defford Road.

At the time a council spokesman highlighted there had been public meetings, two consultations, and the decision was taken through a democratic process.

Only two councillors voted against, one of them being Cllr Tucker. Previously he claimed that the March consultation - which produced 142 responses, with 63 people in favour of the hall by the cemetery and 31 wanting it at the town hall - was “not enough to base a decision on”.

And now he had gone further, saying misleading information in the consultation “invalidated the result”. Cllr Tucker said he believed the result was heavily influenced by the misleading statement in the consultation that stated “a second floor on the Town Hall - could not provide a hall larger than those already available elsewhere in the town.” He claims that he has shown this to be untrue, and that the Town Hall could provide a hall the same size proposed by architects for the cemetery field site.

Cllr Tucker said: “I believe if people had known this it’s quite likely the result of the vote would have been reversed. I’m not saying the council set out to mislead but now the facts are known, they must reconsider.”

The authority stress this is only Cllr Tucker’s opinion, previously raised in meetings, and he had not produced the evidence to support it. A council spokesman said: "The Town Council did not share Cllr Tucker’s opinion regarding the first floor of the Town Hall nor did they agree that any misleading information had been distributed. This decision was based on feasibility and costs of the proposals. There are considerable practical difficulties in extending the Town Hall upwards and the council received professional advice from various sources all of whom stated these difficulties would probably be very costly to overcome. The new hall will be considerably larger than anything that could be provided at the Town Hall."

This Thursday, a public exhibition is being held on the project from 10am until 8pm at the Town Hall. Residents are being invited to see what the council’s proposals and ideas are, with the plans available to view and the architects on hand to answer any questions.