A mix-up over whether a meeting had been cancelled led to a lack of Conservative members at an online meeting of the Towns Fund Advisory and Engagement group.

The group has been set up and is made up of leading business figures as well and MPs and councillors to advise on developing the town, particularly the centre, using £20m of government funding.

A meeting scheduled for Friday, September 16 went ahead but without any members of the Conservative administration, in particular the cabinet member for culture, heritage, leisure and town centre experience, Matty Courtliff.

Coun Courtliff had been wrong-footed by the fact that all other council meetings in the 10 days between the Queen’s death and her funeral had been postponed.

He said: “As all council meetings had been cancelled, due to the mourning period for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, I wrongly assumed this meeting had also been cancelled.

“I was in London at the time queueing to see Her Majesty lying in state.

“I lost my grandmother, who loved the Queen, last year, so it was important for me to go and pay my respects, for myself and on behalf of my grandmother.”

Meetings of the previous Town’s Found Board had been open to the public. It appears meetings of the new group may not be so.