CONSERVATIVE election candidate Mark Harper has refused to apologise over a message posted on social media last week in which he called the Forest of Dean District Council’s failed purchase of a shopping complex in Worcester ‘barmy’.

But similar purchases have gone ahead in neighbouring Monmouthshire which is Tory-controlled.

However, in his Facebook post last Monday week, Mr Harper called the same investment idea from the Independent Alliance-led Forest of Dean District Council ‘incredibly risky’.

The Forest of Dean Council were looking to borrow £50m from the Public Works Loan Board, a government organisation which helps council’s acquire money for projects, but a change in government lending rates meant the interest payable on the cash rose by 50 per cent.

As such, the council withdrew from the proposed deal at the end of October but, while it was on-going before the collapse, the council’s rulers were accused by members of the Conservatitve group in Coleford of avoiding public scrutiny on the project by invoking an exclusion of the Press and public law at authority meetings where it was discussed.

FULL STORY IN THIS WEEK’S FORESTER