A CORNWALL councillor who has received a political warning for failing to apologise and undergo “training” says her punishment sets a dangerous precedent.

Cllr Dulcie Tudor was found to be “in breach of the Code of Conduct for Cornwall Council” for speaking out about the way the local authority dealt with a self-styled Gypsy.

The councillor for Threemilestone and Chacewater was the subject of a complaint brought on November 7 last year by Alison Bulman, the local authority’s strategic director for care and wellbeing, alleging a “breach of confidentiality in relation to a vulnerable service user”.

It came after Cllr Tudor, who is not aligned to any political group, criticised the council for possibly moving self-styled Gypsy Neil Wainwright on to land at Langarth garden village, which is being built in her division. Instead, Mr Wainwright’s double-decker bus was moved to the council’s own County Hall/Lys Kernow headquarters in Truro, where it is still parked.

He had previously been living in the bus for four years outside a council house he never occupied in Falmouth, where he was seen as a nuisance and safety risk by many local residents.

Cllr Tudor was grilled by the council’s standards committee last week. It agreed to uphold the complaint and issued a censure. But she said she “won’t be losing any sleep” over the decision, adding: “I am satisfied I have acted in the best interests of the people in my division.”

Her statement continues: “I could never, for instance, have agreed to any terms for an informal resolution to this matter which would have effectively gagged me from publicly speaking about something which would negatively affect the safety and wellbeing of people in Threemilestone, Chacewater and Langarth.

“The decision to censure me after a complaint, not from a member of the public but from a senior officer at the council, has set a dangerous precedent.

“It will only serve to deter other councillors from asking serious questions about decisions taken by officers and to be able to challenge where they think Cornish taxpayers’ money is being misspent. No one will want to go through what I have over the last six months.

“I’ll carry on being the best councillor I can for the people in my division, who know what’s really been at stake here, and the wider community.

“I would ask the public a question I don’t think a senior officer of the council would ever have to consider: if someone living in a bus pulled up in front of their home to live and started acting in an anti-social manner, how would they want their local councillor to help?

“Or, more pertinently, what rights would they want their councillor to have to be able to help?”