FOREST of Dean councillor Alan Preest is calling for the head of Anthony Elkington, chairman of the council's Standards Committee. He wants Mr Elkington to resign, apologise and then pick up the bill for the 'farce' of reporting him to the Standards Board for England.

Cllr Preest heard last week that the Board has thrown out the Forest council's Standards Committee claim that during his six months' suspension he had continued in letters to newspapers to be disrespectful to officers and had brought the authority into disrepute.

Standards for England say they will take no further action.

The ruling reads: "It is well established that when a councillor is suspended he or she cannot fulfil the functions of a councillor. Hence Councillor Preest cannot have been acting in his official capacity at the time he wrote the letters or contributed to the articles, and therefore his conduct was not governed by the Code of Conduct."

Delighted at the outcome, Cllr Preest claimed the council's Standards Committee had set out to discredit him - a move which was of absolutely no benefit to the electorate.

"I believe Mr Elkington's position as chairman of the Standards Committee is now untenable and his immediate resignation should be tendered," he said.

Cllr Preest said The Standards for England letter clearly demonstrated that their time should never have been wasted and that the chairman of the Standards Committee and other involved appeared to be ignorant of very basic rules.

"Resignation for the former and training for others appears to be what is required to meet the standard," he said.

Cllr Preest said that he required no apology but he believed others close to him and who had been distressed by all that had gone on deserved to be acknowledged.

He added: "The cost of this farce – electricity, council staff time, committee time, printing etc - needs to be revealed and Mr Elkington should be subsequently billed. Not one penny should be payable by council taxpayers of our district."

Cllr Preest described the Standards for England decision as a victory for democracy, and for freedom of speech.