THE alleged prodding of one Marlborough town councillor by another resulted in a row over protocol at a council meeting on Monday.

Former mayor Coun Nick Fogg has refuted a claim by Coun Peggy Dow that he assaulted her by prodding her at the end of a stormy debate over who should chair the planning committee.

Coun Dow has made a formal complaint to the Local Government Standards Board for England backed up by three witness statements.

Coun Fogg, who is also a Kennet district councillor, has dismissed the claim as nonsense and denied that he prodded Coun Dow deliberately or even accidentally.

On Monday when councillors met for a planning committee meeting Coun Dow refused to sit next to Coun Fogg.

Traditionally councillors sit in the same place at every meeting with the more recently elected member on the mayor's left and proceeding clockwise around the table in order of seniority with the longest serving members on the mayor's left.

Since the local elections last year Coun Fogg who received the highest votes of all the new members has sat at the far end of the table to the mayor with Coun Dow on his immediate left.

However for Monday's meeting Coun Dow switched places with Coun Mel Curtis to be a couple of places away from Coun Fogg.

This brought an outburst from the council's longest serving member and former mayor Coun Stewart Dobson.

He said: "As the longest serving member of this council I wish to draw attention to a councillor sitting in the wrong position.

"I am deeply unhappy with this. The position of seating around this table is not a matter in our standing orders but it is a tradition that goes back a very long time.

"It sets a dangerous precedent. If I had taken this action every time through my long service it would have been rather like musical chairs."

Coun David Parker, chairman of the planning committee, told Coun Dobson that as the seating arrangement was not an item on the agenda it was the wrong place to raise it.

Coun Parker said it was a matter for discussion by the full council and should be raised at the next meeting on June 21.