A Deepings Councillor has accused South Kesteven District Council of "censorship" saying he was denied the opportunity to ask questions at one of its Scrutiny Committees.

Coun Ashley Baxter (Ind - Market and West Deeping) was attending the virtual meeting of the Rural and Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee (OSC) on Thursday and was hoping to ask a question about the council's record on house-building.

However, despite numerous requests, Coun Baxter says the Chair of the meeting Coun Ray Wootten (Con - Grantham St Wulfram's) refused permission.

Coun Baxter said after the meeting: "It is quite insulting and counter-productive of Cllr Wootten to deny me an opportunity to ask a question. I don't know why he and his Conservative colleagues are so afraid of scrutiny and potential criticism.

"Chairs of Committee who are all Conservative accept rambling comments and questions from members of their own party but when opposition members wish to speak they are commonly asked to 'be brief' as if the Chair were granting some kind of personal favour by allowing them to participate."

"For the record, I was going to ask if Coun Robert Reid would be prepared to publish details of the Council's house-building programme. The numbers of council houses available in the District has been falling by nearly 50 per year recently due to 'Right-to-Buy' sales and, despite various Conservative promises to build more properties, delivery of new houses has moved at a glacial pace"

In recent months, Cllr Baxter has similarly clashed with the ruling Conservative group at other council meetings.

In July, he was ejected from a meeting of the Licensing Committee. In November, he clashed wish them over the issue of 'secret' workshops of the Planning Committee. And in February he was muted during a Cabinet meeting because the Council Leader, Cllr Kelham Cooke (Con - Casewick) took offence to a question he had asked about SKDC's use of consultants. At a meeting of South Kesteven Full Council in January, Coun Baxter proposed an external independent review of the Council's scrutiny process and a review is planned to take place this summer. He commented: "To his credit, Coun Cooke accepted my proposal without hesitation. I think he is aware that the reputation of the whole council is compromised by the current inherent problems with the scrutiny process". Coun Wootten (Grantham- St Wulfram's) responded: "Councillor Baxter is not a member of the Rural & Communities Overview & Scrutiny Committee and therefore under the SKDC Constitution a non member is only allowed to speak with the Chairman's permission. "As all our meetings are virtual we follow a protocol, whereby the chat box is only used to request to speak and, Councillor Baxter was reminded by the Vice Chairman to stop using this for comments. "Councillor Baxter was called to speak by myself on a number of occasions despite the fact that he had not requested to speak. During an update on coronavirus Councillor Baxter started to question the officer giving the presentation with an historical, question which had nothing to do with the subject." Coun Wootten continued: "At SKDC we have rules by which members can engage with any committee and politics do not enter into this." "Unfortunately Councillor Baxter does get excited at times when things don't go his own way then he over reacts and takes things personally. "I for one believe in good scrutiny and, asking questions not relevant to the agenda wasn't acceptable on this occasion, due to the amount of business we had to cover. "Councillor Baxter does not need an audience to ask questions publicly as he has open access to the Executive Management, Officers and Cabinet Members, just like the rest of us Councillors."