A DISTRICT councillor is facing a call to resign after breaching the local authority’s code of conduct by lobbying a planning committee over a neighbour’s extension.

South Oxfordshire District Council (SODC) said Wheatley councillor Andrew Hodgson was in the wrong when he handed a letter to fellow councillors objecting to plans for 51 Crown Road, in Wheatley.

Owners Tim and Claire Davis submitted a planning application in March last year to demolish their bungalow and replace it with a detached two storey house.

Following an independent investigation, the council’s standards committee decided against suspending Mr Hodgson.

But it said the Conservative councillor should be censured and write to the chairman of the council’s planning committee to apologise.

They agreed the letter, which set out his objections to the scheme, breached the to council’s code by trying to persuade planning committee members to refuse permission. The standards committee heard Mr Hodgson had used the salutation “dear colleagues” in the letter and had marked it private and confidential, before distributing it to councillors.

As a resident, Mr Hodgson is legally entitled to send letters of objection to planning committee members.

But the committee said his letter had been written in a way which suggested he was trying to influence his colleagues as a councillor. He should have made it explicit that he was only writing as a private citizen and not a councillor.

Standards committee chairman Sylvia West said: “The committee has come to the decision that Councillor Hodgson has failed to comply with the code of conduct.

“He was taking advantage of his role as a councillor and has breached. . . the code.”

John Newman, of surveyors Patricia Newman Practice in Wallingford — who acted for Mr and Mrs Davis — called for Mr Hodgson to resign.

He added: “That the council had to act in order to protect individuals from their elected representative is reprehensible.”

Mr Hodgson said: “The whole experience has been incredibly unpleasant and I feel victimised for simply exerting my rights to object as a private individual.

“I was acting in my personal capacity the whole time.”

He declined to comment on whether he would resign.