A FORMER council chairman has been found guilty of misconduct by a standards board.

At its June meeting, members of Brompton Town Council heard that Hambleton District Council's standards committee had finished investigating Bert Langthorne.

Mr Langthorne was a parish councillor for 46 years before stepping down at the last elections in May. He still represents the village at district level.

The committee said Mr Langthorne was guilty of not declaring a personal interest when Brompton council discussed a planning application for Crawford Grange in the village.

Members discussed the matter in March and April 2005, but Mr Langthorne failed to mention the applicant was his son, he had previously lived at the address and the property adjoins his current address.

The board said he had failed to comply with the code of conduct that all councillors signed up to.

Brompton council's clerk, Paul Atkin, said: "The matter is closed. He came to the last parish meeting as a member of the public and contributed, so that is an indication that there is no ill feeling."

Council chairman Cyril Kirby said: "Bert Langthorne has given us a public apology for what he has done. There is no reason why we shouldn't have a positive relationship with him as long as he keeps his nose clean. I think he has learned his lesson and it is going to be a bit quieter now."

Peter Sowray, chairman of the district council's standards board said: "We did find that he had breached the code of conduct, but we did not consider it to be a major breach.

"We decided to ask him to write a letter of apology to the council and that would be the end of it as far as we are concerned."

Speaking of the matter, Mr Langthorne said: "The question I would like to ask is why was it that the councillors and the clerk sat in on the meeting and not one of them asked if I had an interest in it? All I wanted to do was to explain exactly what was happening."