READING Borough Council has remained tight lipped about the use of developer's contributions after councillors were told they could not raise the issue at a public meeting.

Last week the Chronicle revealed tens of thousands of pounds had to be paid back to one firm after the council admitted it did not use the funding correctly.

Three Conservative councillors asked if they could pose questions about the way the finance - known as Section 106 payments - had been spent on a series of projects including Reading station.

The funding is paid towards councils by developers to offset any impact new projects may have on the local infrastructure.

However Councillors Isobel Ballsdon, Ed Hopper and Tom Steele were each told they could not submit their questions by the council's monitoring officer Chris Brooks.

The authority's constitution states that any formal questions submitted less than a week before a committee meeting must be deemed as "urgent" by both the legal head and the mayor.

Cllr Isobel Ballsdon said: "For normal questions from councillors you have to submit them a whole week in advance.

"Under this urgent question rule of the constitution as long as it is submitted by noon the previous day and the monitoring officer together with the mayor deem the questions are urgent then we are allowed to put the question to the committee.

"Sadly they did not allow us.

"If the Labour administration had nothing to hide I think they would have answered us then and there.

"It is really important that the public and opposition councillors are informed as soon as possible what the potential risk is to the capital budget and what the Labour administration is going to do about it."

Reading Borough Council spokesman Oscar Mortali confirmed two separate question requests were received over the course of last weekend.

However he added: "This means neither request fell within the prescribed time limit for policy committee, on Monday, and traffic management committee, on Tuesday.

"The monitoring officer, in conjunction with the mayor, did not consider them a matter of genuine urgency, particularly when the questions could be asked at the next meeting of the council's strategic environment, planning and transport committee on November 24, giving time for a full and thorough response."