COUNCILLORS have walked out on a special committee set up to respond to the District Auditor's Blobbygate enquiry describing it as a "farce."

Independent members say they want to put some distance between their group and the Unique response committee, which is currently meeting to draw up an official response to the Auditor's enquiry.

Last month the DA issued his provisional findings into the £2 million theme park debacle and declared that some of the actions taken by the authority had been "unlawful, irrational, imprudent and mistaken."

But Independents say they fear any attempts to further excuse the authority rather than accept the auditor's findings will reflect badly on the council.

They are recommending that there is no 'official response' on the grounds that councillors with very little knowledge of the affair are ill-prepared to make considered comments.

And they say they are worried that making excuses to mitigate the auditor's findings could further lessen the authority's battered reputation.

Group leader Tricia Heath said: "We think it is farcical to expect councillors with little knowledge of what really went on to pass judgement on a report drawn up by highly qualified lawyers and accountants.

"This enquiry involves thousands of pages of detailed information and for us councillors to suggest that the auditor, who has spent over three years investigating this, may have missed something or got something wrong is ludicrous.

"We should accept the preliminary findings and leave it to the auditor to make a final report based on his expert knowledge."

She added: "It's important that we send a message to the tax paying public that we, as an authority, are willing to accept what went wrong with Crinkley Bottom and are willing to come to terms with it.

"If any councillor has anything important to say to the auditor it should have been raised three years ago when he was starting his investigations."

The Independents are also unhappy that the response committee is chaired by Cllr Pat Quinton, who was on a committee that considered an internal investigation into Crinkley Bottom that found no evidence of unlawfulness or imprudence.

Membership of the committee has been criticised and Cllrs Geoff Wilson and June Ashworth, both MBIs, have already stepped down from taking part in the committee proceedings.