HIGH Court judges could be asked to intervene if planning permission is granted to move Crewe's war memorial.

Campaigners from the Memorial Action Team vowed to take their fight all the way to the top when Crewe and Nantwich borough councillors took the decision away from the planning committee.

The council wants to move the memorial from Market Square to Municipal Square as part of a £3m town-centre improvement project.

Long-standing members of the committee were angered when the mayor, Steve Roberts, resolved Wednesday's hung vote in favour of hearing the planning application before full council.

In the event of a draw vote, protocol usually sees the casting vote side with the status quo.

One member, who has been involved in planning decisions for more than 50 years, immediately offered his resignation, criticising the 'insult' to himself and the committee.

Cllr Allan Richardson said: 'I have never seen or heard of any authority do such a thing. It is an insult to our integrity.

'They claim this is an unusually important decision, but any £3m-pound development is of great importance to the people who submit it.Thereare nogroundstoquestion ourabilitytomake adecisioninthis or any other case.'

Cllr Chris Thorley, chairman of the Development (planning) Committee, supported his colleague's views.

He said: 'In 35 years I have never known anything like it. How is this going to look to other people who put in applications, never mind the public at large?

'What this means is a planning decisionwillnow betakenbymembers who have little experience or no formal training in handling planning matters.'

Memorial Action Team spokesman Frank Jones said he felt the decision was another example of the Labour-led board pushing through its own agenda regardless of all opposition.

He said: 'It seems wrong to me that the mayor in effect had two votes when he is himself a member of the Labour group which has dreamed up the memorial move.

'As a team, we do not have public money to waste on such projects. Everything we do we pay for with our pensions because we care about the memorial, we care about the town and we hate injustice.

'This latest episode has merely hardened our resolve.'

Council leader Peter Kent defendedtheoutcome bypointingoutthe condition under planning law which prevents local authorities appealing against decisions on their own applications, making it vitally important that the council backed whatever conclusion was reached.

Cllr Roberts denied his casting vote had flown in the face of convention, saying he simply sided with the precedent set by previous full council votes on the memorial.

He said: 'The status quo on this was set at January's meeting when the full council voted to push ahead with the move.

'Up until then the Conservative group had argued for some months that this was such an important issue, decisions should not be taken by a handful of members in isolation.

'I simply went along with the point of view ratified by January's vote.'