A COUNCILLOR has been warned that his two controversial planning applications - for a travellers' site and a statue - put him at risk of infringing councillors' code of conduct.

However, City of York Council, which originally refused to validate Cllr Mark Warters' application for a three-pitch site on the forecourt of the authority's HQ, West Offices amid fears it might breach the Equality Act, says it is now valid.

It says the plans for a so-called 'monument to mismanagement' in nearby Station Rise - which it originally said was technically invalid in relation to ownership of the site - will also become valid later this month following publication of a public notice.

The Independent Osbaldwick councillor lodged the travellers' site application last month, claiming it would help meet a desperate need for a disadvantaged group and make better use of such brownfield land than placing sites in the greenbelt.

Within weeks, he submitted a separate application for a marble life-sized statue on a red granite pedestal to the person who voters in a planned public poll considered most responsible for ‘fiascos which have afflicted York.’

But the council's interim director of city and environmental services, Sarah Tanburn, told Cllr Warters last week she was concerned he risked infringing the Code of Conduct, to which he had committed himself as an elected member of the authority.

She said this included treating others with respect, not doing anything which may 'cause the council to breach any equality enactment', not bullying or intimidating any person and not bringing the council into disrepute.

Cllr Warters said that if anyone thought he had breached the code, there should be a formal complaint so the matter could be taken to a Standards Committee hearing, adding: "I have nothing to hide." He suggested the council was attempting to bully and intimidate him and his agent, architect Matthew Laverack.

A council spokeswoman said yesterday that the travellers' site application was now valid after a redacted version had been submitted to comply with equalities legislation.

She said the monument application would become valid after November 25, but the council intended to redact images contained within it prior to publication because, 'when considered together with other aspects of the submission, this could be regarded as defamatory.'