A mayor on a town council accused of operating like "a street gang" has resigned after just four months in the role.

An extraordinary meeting of Woodstock Town Council has been called to deal with appointing a new mayor after the sudden resignation of John Banbury who only took on the position in June.

Town clerk Valentin Lavdakov said: "We have received a signed letter from the Cllr John Banbury, stating that he wishes to step down from his role as a mayor with immediate effect.

"No reason for the resignation was provided."

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Mr Banbury, 87, who will remain a town councillor, was delighted when he was again elected in June exactly 50 years he was first appointed in 1972.

John Barnbury has stepped down as mayor with immediate effect (Image: John Banbury) He only decided to put himself forward "two or three weeks" before the election but said: "I could see that the Woodstock Town Council did not seem to be functioning very well and as an experienced councillor I thought it might be an idea to liven it up again".

He added: "There was a lot of hard feeling, I think, between personalities on the council, a lot of frustration in some ways and I think it really needed shaking up."

Things reached an extreme when councillor Sharone Parnes took his own authority to the small claims court this summer over alleged data breaches.

The case was thrown out and Mr Parnes is now liable for the town council’s costs of £1,168.50.

He had previously described his fellow councillors as operating like a "street gang".

He said he "often experienced what has felt to me like intimidating and insulting resentment, by some colleagues, around things like asking to record named votes, raising data protection concerns, querying out of the ordinary financial expenditures, and suggesting to consult the public before determining positions that affect the entire community".

"Sometimes some of the reactions seemed almost more like those within a stereotypical street gang than a democratic entity operating in a locality associated with the legacy of Churchill," he said.

Other concerns have come to light about how the council is run.

Two unnamed councillors faced West Oxfordshire District Council's standards committee over allegations of breaching the council's code of conduct earlier this year.

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It also emerged former mayor Nick Manby-Brown used his own money to pay for the authority's Christmas gifts after concerns were raised about using taxpayer cash.

And a report presented at a meeting in April said the previous administration giving away half of the civic budget to one of the four town churches was a breach of the financial standards.

The request should have been taken to full council for agreement.

In the run-up to the general election Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for Bicester & Woodstock Veronica Oakeshott attended the council AGM and said she was "astonished" to hear Mr Manby-Brown accusing councillors of being so focused on opposing housing development that they forgot to negotiate money from developers to help pay for infrastructure.