BURY Council's chief executive has been ticked off for intervening in the school closures row.

Protester Andy Loynes complained that Mark Sanders had written to local newspapers suggesting they run different readers' letters to the usual anti-closure ones.

The Local Government Ombudsman has cleared Mr Sanders of any wrongdoing, but says his actions were "ill-advised" and "not best practice". She says she "may find grounds to criticise the council if such tactics are repeated in future".

The chief says he will take the criticism on board, but will be not be silenced for simply expressing his views.

Mr Loynes was heavily involved in the campaign to keep open Broad Oak and Prestwich high schools. They were ultimately saved by the independent School Organisation Committee (SOC) after a long and often heated battle.

"The chief executive was attempting to prevent legitimate opposition to the proposed school closures," he said. "Just because he failed to persuade local media not to publish letters by myself and others does not alter the fact that it was his intention.

"Such attempts to stifle public debate, whether successful or not, are an abuse of power, anti-democratic and unacceptable."

Mr Sanders, however, says he does not agree with the ombudsman's comments.

"All I did was ask people to bear the weighting of the correspondence in mind and allow the SOC to have a bit of freedom for one week alone, which is hardly a draconian attempt to censor anyone when the letters had run for 15 weeks."

On the threat of future action, he added: "I will take that on board. But I am entitled, like any other citizen, to make my views known to the press from time to time, and it's up to the press what they do with that. I am not going to be silenced by people who don't know what the local context is."