CONSERVATIVE leaders “settled their debts” by handing control of a community centre to a group who had run an anti-Labour leafleting campaign before the 2021 elections, an investigation has found.

A report by independent reviewer Melvin Kenyon, of Kenyon Brabrook, did not find the decision was “corrupt”.

But he did say that the decision to hand a 25-year lease of The Laindon Community Centre to newly-registered charity the Laindon Community Centre “lacked transparency”.

The centre, on Aston Road, reopened in December after the council splashed out on a £2 million refurbishment programme - following its closure during the coronavirus pandemic.

And the report found the group sees itself as having a “special relationship” with the Conservative administration “that might extend to influencing the processes of the council and, even, the democratic process”.

Those now running the centre were heavily involved in a leafleting campaign that claimed Labour was planning to demolish the building to make way for flats - a claim that the report said lacked substance.

Former Labour council leader Gavin Callaghan claims the campaigners “effectively won the election for the Conservatives”.

In the 2021 elections, Conservative candidate Kevin Wingfield won Laindon Park ward, claiming 54.6 per cent of the vote - a 21.5 per cent increase on the party’s previous performance, while Labour’s vote share fell by 8.5 per cent to 27 per cent.

Overall, the Conservatives gained four seats and wrestled back control of the council from the Labour and independent coalition.

Mr Kenyon’s report said that had been “no transparency in the decision to award the lease” to the group, adding that “no effort appears to have been made to establish whether there were other organisations who might have been interested”.

He wrote: “The trustees were drawn from amongst those who had been most active and most vocal in the campaign to ‘Save the Laindon Community Centre’.”

In the report, Mr Kenyon said he did not share Mr Callaghan’s belief this was “corrupt” but added: “It is nevertheless difficult to conclude anything other than that the new administration and the ‘Save the Laindon Community Centre’ activists were in each other’s debt and that the new arrangements helped settle those debts.”