A WORTH Valley parish council chairman has requested a six month leave of absence for "personal reasons".

Members of Haworth, Cross Roads and Stanbury Parish Council were informed at their latest meeting last night (Oct 24) that Cllr Angel Kershaw would still be remaining as a councillor, despite this break.

They also agreed to elect Cllr Gary Swallow to take over as chairman, after he was proposed and seconded for the role.

Cllr Kershaw had only been chairman since May 9 of this year. She replaced retiring chairman Cllr John Huxley who stood down from the parish council for health reasons.

Speaking immediately after his election, Cllr Swallow said: "This is not an office I've sought but due to certain problems and issues we've been having recently the current chairman has stood down, and I've been asked if could fill the gap at least until May.

"I've agreed to that, and I have a sincere wish that this council will now move forwards.

"We have had some personality clashes recently, though I will not go into detail on that."

Cllr Swallow then read a short extract from a publication called the Good Councillor's Guide, urging members to constructively exploit the fact that members of the parish council have different interests and skills. He encouraged them to work together as a team.

He acknowledged that the parish council had faced some controversy over how long each member should be allowed to speak on each topic.

He proposed that the council should no longer have a maximum limit of three minutes speaking time for each councillor.

Cllr Swallow instead recommended a more flexible guidance time of five minutes, adding that this would not be a strict limit for councillors who feel they need to speak for a little longer.