A COUNCIL has insisted a meeting held to consider the £21 million purchase of Newport Leisure Park met legal guidelines, despite the concerns of auditors.

Monmouthshire council’s investment committee met on March 6 last year to consider the purchase of the site, where it decided the investment should be decided by cabinet later that day.

The investment committee requires three members of its five members to attend for it to be quorate, otherwise the meeting should not go ahead.

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At the meeting, two members of the committee were present – the leader, Cllr Peter Fox, and the cabinet member for resources.

Cllr Alan Davies represented Labour group leader Dimitri Batrouni, but he is not a designated committee member.

An internal audit report says that despite the meeting being ‘inquorate’, it still went ahead.

“Despite [being inquorate], the meeting proceeded and decisions were taken, in breach of the committee’s own terms of reference,” the report says.

It adds: “The investment committee meeting of 6/3/2019 was attended by only two of the nominated committee members, therefore the meeting was not quorate in line with terms of reference for this committee.”

If meetings are not quorate, reports should be deferred to a later date when the meeting can be reconvened to take decisions, the report says.

The report says decisions taken at the meeting “could be subject to challenge.”

The issue is one of two significant risks identified in an internal audit report on the council’s investment property acquisitions last year.

Labour councillor Armand Watts raised concerns the authority “faces the risk of a legal challenge”

“It is staggering that they sanctioned these multi million purchases when the meeting was not quorate,” he said.

A spokesman for Monmouthshire council said: “The investment committee on March 6, 2019 was quorate with councillor Alan Davies representing his group leader as he did later that same day at a meeting of cabinet.

“The decision of Investment Committee that day was to recognise that given the size of the investment under consideration (Newport Leisure Park) it should be approved by cabinet, as it duly was later that day.

“There is no need for a review of the decision and the appropriateness of the quorum will be shared with the audit committee at its meeting later this week.”

The council’s audit committee is due to discuss the report on Thursday.