A DEPUTY mayor is involved in a planning row with her own council after starting to build a conservatory without permission.

Coun Dorothy Walsh may now have to knock down the structure, in the back garden of her Blackburn home, because a belated planning application is due to be refused.

But today Coun Walsh, who has previously been on the borough's planning committee, said she was being treated harshly and had been told she did not need council approval for the work.

She vowed to appeal if she was told to pull the conservatory down -- raising the possibility of her being at loggerheads with Blackburn with Darwen Council when she becomes mayor next May.

Work on the foundations and the lower parts of the walls had already begun at Coun Walsh's house in Hereford Road, Whitebirk, when she was told she needed planning permission.

But draft reports on the conservatory prepared by council officers indicate that this month's planning meeting will be asked to refuse her request because they don't like the design.

Coun Walsh said: "I asked before the work started if I needed planning permission and the council told me no, but something didn't seem right.

"So after the work started, I double checked and then someone else said I did permission because I've had an extension on the house before.

"Normally, these things are decided by planning officers if there are no objections, and I've been told no-one objected but it has to go to committee because I'm a councillor.

"I think that is unfair. I'm not asking for favouritism. As a taxpayer like everyone else I think I am entitled to the same services as everyone else, and it shouldn't have to go to committee.

"If they refuse it, I shall appeal, because it is not fair. I don't want a conservatory for the sake of it, I want it as an extra room for downstairs because I'm disabled and struggle to get upstairs. I'm not doing it for the niceties."

Coun Walsh, a member of the ruling Labour group, has regularly stood in for members of the borough's planning and highways committee.

Chairman Coun Jim Smith said: "I've spoken with Dorothy and we're going up there today to have a look at it.

"She won't receive favouritism but there are rules to follow and councillors know that."

Leader of the council, Coun Kate Hollern, added: "I know Dorothy is unhappy at it going to committee but those are the rules, and I support the rule in this case.

"She has to go through the same procedures as everyone else and needs to be seen to be doing the same.

"If it is refused, then I'll advise her to talk to officers to see what can be done to the plan for it to be approved. That's what I say to people who contact me about planning matters."

But Coun Paul Browne, leader of the Lib Dems said: "There's something not right here, and going off the Labour group's performance on planning this year, it wouldn't surprise me if they overturn the officers' recommendations and let her build it. That's the way Labour runs planning in Blackburn."

Adam Scott, director of regeneration at Blackburn with Darwen Council, said: "The report will go the planning and highways committee because it involves a member of the council. This is consistent with previous applications involving councillors, which always go to the committee to guarantee openness in the decision making process. Otherwise this applicant has been treated exactly as any applicant would be."