DUP councillor suspended for three months

A Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) councillor has been suspended for three months by a standards watchdog over her involvement in planning decisions lobbied on by her husband.

Linda Clarke, of Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council, was investigated by the Northern Ireland Local Government Commissioner for Standards.

It found she failed to declare her interests for council planning decisions on which her husband, DUP assembly member Trevor Clarke, was making representations.

Mrs Clarke is a DUP councillor for the Dunsilly area and works in her husband's constituency office in South Antrim.

The watchdog began investigating in 2019 following a series of newspaper reports.

A hearing on Wednesday was told Mrs Clarke sat on the council's planning committee in May 2017 when her husband made representations on two applications.

He was noted in council records as representing the applicant.

Mrs Clarke had received guidance from the council's lawyer earlier that month advising of a possible conflict of interest.

The advice said that Mr Clarke was understood at the time to be "connected with a planning consultancy business".

Assistant commissioner Ian Gordon found Mrs Clarke had breached three sections of the councillors' code of conduct relating to declaring interests.

The hearing was told the councillor had apologised in submissions to the watchdog.

She expressed "regret" that she did not declare her "dual conflict of interest" in the planning applications and withdraw from the council meeting.

Mr Gordon said the councillor "did not display insight into her actions" and did not accept her conflict of interest "until very recently".

He said the councillor had a "significant private and personal non-pecuniary interest".

"The area of planning is a matter of substantial public interest," he added.

The commissioner said Mrs Clarke had "no previous history" of breaching the code and had self-referred to the watchdog following media reports.

The watchdog probe was among a number of controversies which emerged in 2019 surrounding the Clarkes.

At the time, the couple insisted they "made all the relevant declarations and adhered to all rules".

In 2023, another DUP councillor who worked in Mr Clarke's constituency office was suspended from the council's planning committee for three months.

The watchdog found John Smyth breached the code of conduct by not declaring an interest when Mr Clarke made representations to the committee.

In 2021, the assembly member apologised for not declaring to a constituent who was opposing a planning application that he was lobbying for the plans through a side-line consultancy business.

The apology followed a complaint made to the Northern Ireland Assembly's standards commissioner.

Clarke had faced questions in 2019 after it emerged he was running the consultancy business, which represented applicants in the council planning process.

He denied it was a conflict of interest that breached assembly rules, but later ceased its operations.

It also emerged Mid and East Antrim Borough Council had launched a planning enforcement investigation into a triple garage built at the Clarkes' home without approval.

Mr Clarke, at the time, insisted it did not require planning permission.

But he later submitted a retrospective application, which was granted.

The DUP has been approached for comment.