The game of musical chairs at troubled parish council continues.

There have been further changes at Bearsted Parish Council, which had three councillors resign in December.

Three new members were co-opted onto the council at a meeting on Tuesday night.

But the council also suffered a further resignation.

Coming on to the council are Carolyn Smith, Frank Jagger - who has served as a councillor in the past before himself resigning - and Clive English.

Cllr English is one of the longer-serving ward members on Maidstone Borough Council and is also serves on Tovil Parish Council. He is regarded as something of an expert on constitutional affairs and procedures.

His co-option - he lives in Mote Avenue in Maidstone - is widely seen as a way of bringing some non-partisan guidance to the village.

The parish council has been divided over a proposal known as Project A, which would have seen the village tennis club expanded onto the existing allotments, and the allotment holders moved to a new piece of land donated by a local benefactor,

The scheme has still not come to fruition 27 months after it was first proposed.

The controversy has given rise to much acrimony including claims of conspiracy and bullying.

At present, the council is being threatened with legal action that is being brought by one of its villagers, after Martin Broughton, who was council chairman at the time, allowed another councillor, Fabienne Hughes, to resume her council seat even though she had been absent for more than six months while allegedly living in France. Local government regulations require any member who misses all meetings in a six-month period to be dismissed unless a special resolution is passed to make an exception (usually done only on health grounds).

Cllr Broughton was acting on advice given him by the clerk, which she in turn had obtained from the Kent Association of Local Councils, that because Cllr Hughes had sent her apologies to the meetings that she missed, the six-month rule did not apply.

Other councillors argued that the six-month rule was a legal stipulation, and that Cllr Hughes could not continue to act as a councillor.

Since then, Cllr Broughton has resigned, and now Cllr Fabienne Hughes has also resigned - although her opponents said that technically she could not resign - because she was no longer a councillor in any case.

It is understood the council has received a letter from Weightmans solicitors requiring the council to acknowledge that it acted incorrectly in allowing Mrs Hughes to continue to sit as a councillor, and that the council corrects the minutes of subsequent meetings accordingly, otherwise legal action is threatened.

The council will hold an extraordinary meeting this week to discuss the letter.

Last Tuesday's meeting voted in Cllr David Hall as the new chairman.

Cllr Hall was himself only elected last July.

Around 35 members of the public attended the meeting and afterwards one resident praised Cllr Hall's first bash at chairmanship.

She said: "He ran the meeting very tactfully and efficiently - there wasn't a single heckle.

"Such as difference from the way the meetings have been in recent months. Perhaps things are finally looking up for Bearsted."

Meanwhile the council had to draft in a locum clerk to run Tuesday's meetings as their regular clerk, Erin Sugden, is on long-term sick leave.