Reigate and Banstead councillors faced three formal complaints in 2025-26, and one ended in an apology over parking. It goes to committee on 10 November.
A Reigate and Banstead councillor apologised to a member of the public last year after a complaint about their conduct over a parking issue. The case is one of three formal complaints about councillors in 2025-26, the council’s annual standards report shows.
The report does not name any of the councillors. It goes to the Standards Committee at Reigate Town Hall on Tuesday 10 November.
Three is below the usual number. The rolling average is five formal complaints a year, the report says.
The three complaints
| What the complaint was about | What happened |
|---|---|
| A councillor’s conduct with a member of the public, over a parking issue | Settled locally with an apology to the complainant |
| A councillor’s conduct at a North Forum planning service meeting on 18 August 2025 | Resolved by mediation |
| Social media posts backing a new parish council during the consultation, including the likely precept and replies to residents who had not received paper consultation material | Not upheld, because the councillor was not considered to be acting as a councillor |
An independent person was consulted on all three, under the complaints procedure. None went as far as an assessment panel or a hearing. Those are the procedure’s last two stages.
The social media complaint arose during the review behind the new town and parish councils in the borough.
A code that will not be rewritten
The committee had planned to review the councillors’ Code of Conduct. It dropped the plan because the council is being abolished.
The work was suspended “in light of Local Government Reorganisation in Surrey”, the report says. The committee and the Monitoring Officer, the council’s top legal officer for standards, decided the code “was fit for purpose for the remainder of this Council’s lifetime”. Full Council last approved it in July 2020.
That lifetime ends on 31 March 2027. East Surrey Council takes over the next day.
The report also carries a warning to members. Councillors are “personally responsible for the content they publish on any form of social media”, and a false and damaging statement could lead to a defamation action against them personally.
What it means for you
You can complain if you think a councillor has broken the code. The procedure has four stages:
- first look by the Monitoring Officer
- local resolution, such as mediation or an apology
- referral to an assessment panel
- a hearing before a sub-committee
The meeting is at 7pm on 10 November in the New Council Chamber. You can attend or watch online.
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