One of the articles in the Morpeth and District Chamber of Trade publication was about its campaign to have equal short-term charges for Northumberland County Council’s car parks in all of its main shopping towns.
It included the address and home telephone numbers of the town’s three County members, sourced from the authority’s website, so residents could tell them of their views.
But Coun Andrew Tebbutt, who represents the Kirkhill ward, was upset with this approach and sent an e-mail to Chamber Chairman Stuart Lishman.
This e-mail was read out at a meeting of the organisation. It included: “I take great exception to you (the Chamber of Trade) printing my personal details in your leaflet without my permission.
“Whilst those details are freely available through official channels and publications, my understanding of the Data Protection Act and my human rights is that I am entitled to protect my privacy and more importantly that of my wife and family.
“I am careful not to print all my details in my own general literature except where Electoral law requires me to.”
Mr Lishman said at the meeting that he had apologised to Coun Tebbutt for any anguish caused to his wife and family, although he acknowledged some members may not agree with this.
The matter was referred to the Car Parking Sub Committee that did the article and its Chairman, Charles Robinson, said that it had done nothing wrong and the piece was approved by the Chamber of Trade’s main committee. He read out the sub committee’s reply to Coun Tebbutt, which included: “We were careful to ensure that the ‘personal details’ you refer to were very much already in the public domain and the information we printed was taken straight from the County Council website.
“If you do not wish people to contact you, then we suggest you should request that these are removed from the various websites and publications in which all of the information is contained.
“The sole purpose of printing this information was that anyone who wished to make comment on this issue to their elected representative could do so readily and easily whether they supported our stance or otherwise.
“We are sorry you have taken offence at us printing information that is already in the public domain.”
Of the responses, Coun Tebbutt said: “I have accepted the apology in full and the matter is dead so I have no further comment to make.”