SENIOR Labour politicians have hit back at claims by a UKIP councillor that the ruling group have block voted Muslim-friendly applications through the planning committee.

An internal UKIP discussion document written by Little Lever councillor Paul Richardson also accuses the ruling Labour group of directing millions of pounds of funds to areas of high ethnicity in Bolton.

The paper came to light after former Breightmet UKIP council candidate Kath Kavanagh claims she was de-selected to run for the party after branding the article ‘racist’.

Now Labour councillors have questioned Cllr Richardson’s position on the planning committee.

Cllr Hanif Darvesh, the chairman of Bolton Council’s planning committee, said: “Cllr. Richardson's polemic raises serious concerns as to his suitability to participate in planning decisions.

“He appears to misunderstand the primary duties of committee members. These are to listen, consider and then apply planning rules.

“To assume that applications are measured on the basis of a block Muslim vote is infantile, incorrect and politically fuelled.

“However, it is little more than can be expected from a representative of a no policy single issue lobby group.”

The article was written after the planning committee approved plans to build the new 700-place Eden Boys’ faith school at the old Wolfenden School in Astley Bridge.

Cllr Richardson raised objections to the plans during the meeting on the basis of traffic and his fears over the impact of "socially divisive" education, but abstained from voting.

When asked by The Bolton News why he chose to abstain — rather than vote against the application — he said he "couldn’t remember".

Cllr Nick Peel, the cabinet member in charge of environmental services, said applications for places of worship, schools or community centre tend to get a positive response from councillors as they represent significant investment in communities in the borough.

Money from the council’s neighbourhood management programmes and area forum budgets is directed to areas of high deprivation as part of the authority’s ambition to "narrow the gap".

Criteria to decide what makes an area of high deprivation is based on the census, rates of unemployment, crime, health and educational attainment.

Cllr Peel said: “The starting point for dealing with these applications should never be about the faith or ethnicity of the end client group, however it would appear that Paul Richardson thinks that this should be an issue.

“This is quite dangerous and not how a member of the committee should behave. The compulsory training that he has received would have made this absolutely clear.

“There is no party whip on planning committee, but if Labour councillors have a track record of tending to vote for community facilities, regardless of the faith of the client group, then that is a positive, not a negative, and is the very opposite of taking a prejudiced view.”