Ottery Town Council has withdrawn support for a planning application due to a ‘conflict of interest’.
The backing was rescinded following a complaint about how the application was handled by the council, the Herald understands.
Ottery Town Council has not confirmed which application it has stopped supporting, but comments submitted by the town council regarding an application for flats at 8 Mill Street have been removed from East Devon District Council's online planning portal.
At a meeting in April, the applicant, Stuart Phillips, was revealed to be the mystery donor who had stepped forward to fund a new bridge for the town at Land of Canaan.
The application, to convert an existing property into four flats, is still to be decided by district councillors.
Ottery Town Council's planning committee held a private session on Monday (July 8).
The meeting's draft minutes said the application was discussed on April 8 2019 and was rescinded due to a 'conflict of interest'.
A spokesman for the town council said: "Councillors of the new council submitted a rescission notice requesting that the supporting comments made by the former council, in response to the planning application, be rescinded. The notice was considered by the planning committee meeting on Monday night and approved.
The spokesman added: "East Devon District Council has since removed the former council's original comments from its planning portal."
East Devon District Council said: "The monitoring officer has not progressed a complaint as the councillor in question was not re-elected at the local elections."
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