THERE is major unrest within Bolton’s Liberal Democrat group after its chairman made allegations against rival groups on social media.

Kev Walsh, who is not an elected councillor but chairs the Bolton Lib Dems, used the party’s official twitter account to suggest that there may have been a ‘backroom deal’ between the borough’s Labour and Tory groups over the terms of the forthcoming planning inquiry which will take place in October.

He and Lib Dem Cllr Andrew Martin have now been criticised by colleague Cllr Carole Swarbrick for making the ‘scurrilous’ comments.

Mr Walsh was not happy that an original motion from Tory Cllr Norman Critchley, which called for members of the public to be allowed to contribute to the inquiry, had been amended prior to the meeting.

Cllr Critchley later revealed that this was because he was satisfied after discussions with Labour that residents would be able to make representations to the inquiry — via the planning inspectorate.

However, there was outrage amongst councillors during the meeting as they viewed Mr Walsh’s tweet, which asked ‘has there been a back room deal between Bolton Labour and the Bolton Conservatives to keep the public from having their say on planning?’

Tory leader Cllr David Greenhalgh described the comments as ‘gutter politics , while Labour Cllr Nick Peel said the accusations were ‘scurrilous’.

In a typically fiery response, Cllr Critchley — who brought the motion, said: “There was no backroom deal, we had an open and honest discussion about policy.

“'To indicate that this council would stoop so low as to do a backroom deal on something as important as this is unforgiveable.”

Despite the criticism, Mr Walsh refused to apologise for his comments said he was happy to have ‘ruffled a few feathers’ during the meeting - although he did choose to delete the tweet during the meeting.

He said: "It says volumes when Councillors receiving £11,450 of tax payer money each year would rather debate the merits of a social media post than actually attempt to tackle the perceived notion of corruption that currently plagues local politics.

"So do I apologise to Cllr Critchley, Cllr Peel and the rest of the Tory and Labour Councillors who took offence? No. We need to be doing all we can to raise the perception of the Council and engage with the general public on their issues of concern. It's time the Tories and Labour actually started following in the Liberal Democrats footsteps and did just that.”

However, this was not a view shared by Mr Walsh’s fellow Liberal Democrat, Smithills Cllr Carole Swarbrick, who hit out at his comments and suggested they had been inspired by her ward colleague Cllr Andrew Martin.

She said: “What appeared on social media suggesting deals between Cllr Critchley and the labour group was pure speculation and was totally without foundation.

“I am disgusted that so called liberal democrat activists, acting on false information from Councillor Martin, made scurrilous assumptions for political gain.

“It is the sort of behaviour that gets politicians a bad name and I have no wish to be associated with it.”

She added: “Cllr Critchley is a well-respected, honourable councillor and I can fully understand his and the conservative groups anger over such nonsense.”

During the meeting on Wednesday, Lib Dem leader Cllr Roger Hayes said he had not seen the tweet and would be looking into it.