Councillor suspended after charging authority £850 for his lawnmower - and £1,300 to store it They said he should not have been chairing a meeting where a decision was taken to buy his lawnmower. The subcommittee's ruling also said: "Councillor Pollard should have known that he had a personal and prejudicial interest in the sale of the lawnmower to the parish council and should have left the meeting." The committee ruled that there was no evidence, as Mr Pollard had claimed, of an agreement for a storage fee for the mower, adding there was "no justification in refusing to release the lawnmower to the warden." The parish council, which purchased the mower in 2007, eventually took possession in 2010 but Mr Pollard was still pursuing payment for the storage of the mower as late as May last year. In a letter to the parish clerk he said: "I would like to claim £1,323 for storage of the mower (this does not include interest as the previous bill did) as agreed by the parish council in 2007. It was minuted that I should receive a £1 a-day storage for the said mower. Failure to pay and I will take this to a small claims court as solicitors have told me I am entitled to it. Mr Pollard, from Ellistown, in Leicestershire, who has been a member of the council since it was formed in 2002, said he had appealed against the subcommittee ruling, but would not comment until after the appeal. Fellow parish councillor Penny Wakefield, however, supports its decision. She said: "I am appalled by this situation. I cannot talk for the council but personally speaking I am very unhappy at what has happened. District Councillor John Cotterill, whose Hugglescote ward includes Ellistown, defended Mr Pollard. He said: "I see Matthew to be a man of absolute integrity. This whole fiasco has ruined him. He certainly does not deserve this.