A SENIOR long-serving councillor at loggerheads with her neighbour is being investigated over a fracas in the street outside their homes, it has emerged.

Detectives are looking into an incident involving Richmondshire District Council's planning committee chairman, Councillor Jane Parlour, and her neighbour of 14 years in Dalton-on-Tees, near Darlington, Elizabeth Kearney.

It is understood the struggle between the women was in front of children and followed the children being reprimanded for playing on straw bales on a nearby disused layby.

Both women reported the incident to the police.

A spokesman for North Yorkshire Police said officers were called to the village at 7.25pm on Sunday, July 13.

He said: “As a result of police enquiries no further police action is being taken against the 38-year-old woman.

“The investigation into the 52-year-old woman remains ongoing.”

The farmer and Independent councillor submitted a planning application for a 18.2m by 7.6m barn beside Mrs Kearney's garden two weeks after the incident, which an officers' report stated would have would have a "significant harmful impact" on her neighbour's property.

Cllr Parlour was not involved in the decision when members approved the proposal earlier this month, after hearing there were no alternative locations for the building and there was a clear agricultural need.

She said: "I haven't done anything wrong. I have been brought up to believe if you tell the truth it will come out."

Mrs Kearney, a shop worker, said: "Every time I come home I feel sick and my hands shake."

She added that she just wanted to be left alone.

The authority's leader, Councillor John Blackie, said Cllr Parlour was an extraordinarily good chairman of planning who commands his total confidence.

He added: "I know that Jane Parlour had been planning the agricultural building for many months, it wasn't something she decided to do on the spur of the moment."