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Dec 9, 2025
Under-fire Burnley councillor urged to reveal their identity | Lancs Live
accrington
An East Lancashire borough's Labour group leader has called on a councillor rapped over failing to properly declare financial interests to name themselves in public to stop colleagues falling under suspicion.
Cllr Mark Townsend made the plea as a full meeting of Burnley Council debated a report from its Audit and Standards Committee which revealed that the authority's monitoring officer had received 21 complaints about borough councillors so far in 2025/26.
He highlighted a separate standards report last month which said that following a September 2024 complaint about an unnamed councillor's declaration of interests an investigation found five out of eight complaints upheld adding: "Member has rectified the situation and apologised."
Mark Townsend: "I was the complainant. The complaints that were upheld covered significant financial interests amounting to hundreds of thousands of pounds
"I did want the resolution to match the level of the transgression which in my opinion after I was made aware of the findings was an open apology to the members of this council.
"Not a private apology which effectively sweeps the matter under the carpet as nothing to see here. There is something to see here and it should be in the open.
"After initially the subject member saying they have done nothing wrong a full investigation had to be undertaken that took 10 months costing many man hours of resources.
"The member was eventually found to have recklessly broken the rules: five out of the eight matters raised upheld.
"So we are now left, after what I have said this evening confirming I am the complainant, with the finger of suspicion pointing at any one of you because nobody knows who it is. It cannot be in the public interest for all councillors to be under suspicion.
"This cannot be right and I'm calling on the member to do the right thing, hold their hand up, apologise to this council and by association the public for misleading them through an incomplete declaration of i
