A MARLOW town councillor has been suspended after a standards board found he used his position to try and win approval for his associates' building plans.

Councillor Tony Dunn "totally and, arguably wilfully, ignored" rules by writing to councillors and officers to try to get planning permission for two plans for Brian and Sue Folley, a panel found.

Suspending him for a year, the Adjudication Panel for England found he "used his position as a councillor to confer or secure an advantage" for them.

This was contrary to the code of conduct at Wycombe District Council, which decides most of the district's planning applications.

He also wrote the letters, on council notepaper, six months after being suspended for a similar incident - but showed "no signs of insight into his behaviour" the panel found.

Its ruling said: "He did not appear to consider the code and the principles which it had been introduced to guard as important."

The hearing was told the chartered surveyor wrote to Cllr Hugh McCarthy, responsible for planning at the council, on June 11 ahead of a June 20 planning committee which would decide one particular plan.

This plan - to build a house at Harleyford Lane, Marlow - had been recommended by officers for refusal.

But Cllr Dunn urged Cllr McCarthy to propose it be approved by the committee - and then wrote to committee members, also in his position as a councillor, asking them to "disagree with the officer's recommendation".

Yet Cllr Dunn, who was a member for Marlow North and West, told the hearing he intervened to "avoid embarrassment" to the council.

The Folleys were fighting a council order which stopped work at the house over allegations it broke a 2003 planning permission. The 2007 application was an attempt to remedy this.

However, Cllr Dunn told the Marlow Free Press that he intervened as he believed the stop order to be unsound - and thought this would be found at a public inquiry, damaging the council.

Yet Steve Kingston, arguing for the Standards Board of England, said emails between Cllr Dunn and David Merson, the Folleys' solicitor, showed a "team working towards a successful planning application rather than of a ward councillor acting on behalf of a constituent".

Mr Merson told him to seek advice from the council, but he did not, the hearing was told.

In one email, Cllr Dunn suggested "getting a planning committee member to propose to refer it" to the council's regulatory and appeal committee, which he was a member of and said could decide the application.

The second application was for re-building of a farm building at the Folleys' home, also in Harleyford Lane.

The hearing was told Cllr Dunn emailed the planning case officer for this, urging the application be delayed.

Mr Kingston argued this would be to the Folleys' advantage "as it would allow them to enter into further discussions to try and secure approval".

Board chairman Sir Anthony Holland said: "By attempting to influence planning applications to the advantage of his associates, Councillor Dunn failed to act with the honesty and integrity that the general public has every right to expect from their local representatives.

"This was a serious breach of the trust the electorate had placed in him."

The hearing was told Cllr Dunn was paid as a secretary for two of the Folleys' companies - and had recommended his brother, Roy, as a planning consultant to fight the stop notice.

In December 2006, he was suspended from the town council for "seeking to influence" four councillors' votes on a planning application. He apologised to them.

Cllr Dunn resigned from the district council last year as he was taking a job in local government and, under council rules, could not hold both positions.

Cllr Anthony Dunn, who represents Kilburn on Brent Council, has asked us to point out that this story does not refer to him.