Row breaks out between Portsmouth councillors over First Bus buying The News Centre

The comments were made in response to posts from Hilsea councillors Daniel Wemyss and Scott Payter-Harris welcoming plans to build a depot on the site, and accused them of exaggerating their involvement.

‘It seems Cllr Wemyss knew five weeks before First Bus were even asked to re-submit their bid to buy The News Centre…that they had won the bid,’ the post by councillor Lynne Stagg, the city council’s cabinet member for transport, said.

‘The developer who had outbid them a few weeks earlier pulled out the week before last and First had just one week to re-submit their bid which was confirmed last Tuesday (March 21). [It’s] amazing that Cllr Wemyss had such powers of prediction weeks before anything had happened.

‘It also appears that Cllr Payter-Harris claims he’s been campaigning for several years for a bus depot but none of [the council’s] transport officers are aware of this campaign or been approached by him about it.

‘Two claims not based on fact – anyone would think there’s a local election coming up in May.’

She later apologised to Cllr Payter-Harris saying she had been ‘misinformed’ and has agreed, at the request of Cllr Wemyss to remove the post after saying he had prior knowledge of the purchase due to his work for Portsmouth North MP Penny Mordaunt.

Separate posts by the leader of the Portsmouth Independents Party, councillor George Madgwick, and the party’s Hilsea candidate, Emily Strudwick, sharing Cllr Stagg’s comments and accusing Cllrs Wemyss and Payter-Harris of lying were deleted on Tuesday (March 28) morning.

Cllr Wemyss said it was ‘positive’ that the comments had been deleted but said he still had concerns about the quality of political discourse, particularly in the run-up to elections.

‘Social media gives people the ability to take things out of context or to twist things and too often people are hoodwinked by that and, understandably, can take umbrage when misinformation or lies are spread, especially around election time,’ he said. ‘I’m pleased that colleagues have seen they have been victims to this and have removed their imflamatory posts about me.

‘I try to give people the benefit of the doubt as I understand that a lot of people get excited and emotional and don’t often think about what they say on social media but there is always a line and it has been crossed.

‘When you’re elected to public office you should lead by example and the current one being set by opposing parties and their candidates locally is poor.’

Cllr Madgwick said: ‘I feel Cllr Stagg made a grave error in making a public statement criticising other local councillors prior to confirming facts. Based on what I read, from the cabinet head of department, it was clear to me there was intent from Cllr Weymss and Cllr Payter-Harris to mislead the public.

‘I feel uncomfortable that Cllr Weymss seems to repeatedly use his position working for the MP as a way of getting out of being questioned about topics, without providing any proof to support his claims.

‘If he indeed did has this information several weeks prior to the cabinet member for transport then I am concerned that the council were not made aware of this sooner and it was kept from them.

‘I was not asked by anyone to remove the status I shared from Cllr Stagg nor have I apologised for sharing it, because I haven’t done anything wrong. But I decided to delete the share as it was clear the facts were ambiguous and I’m not keen on promoting inaccurate statements.’