A COUNCILLOR could lose his seat if he does not turn up to tonight’s council meeting at Leigh Town Hall.

Cllr Robert Bleakley faced widespread criticism when a standards committee found him guilty of spending £2,418.95 on his council phone in September.

He racked up the charges calling sex chat lines and was also found to have sent text messages ‘containing sexually explicit, sexist and discriminatory material’.

If the Tyldesley representative does not attend tonight’s full council meeting, which starts at 7pm, he will have breached local authority regulations that require members to attend at least one meeting in a six month period.

Cllr Bleakley is repaying the phone charges but has in the past accused the council of running a smear campaign against him.

Also on the agenda for the meeting is a motion put forward by Cllr Gary Wilkes raising concerns about the proposed Town Centre Transformation Project for both Leigh and Wigan town centres.

The motion reads: “Whilst we support this in principle there is a more urgent call for funding in the satellite townships of Ashton, Atherton, Hindley, Standish and Tyldesley town centres which also need investment to address their present decline.”

A second motion put forward by Cllr Norman Bradbury calling for work on the guided busway scheme to be halted immediately and for a task force to be set up.

He has put forward the motion following a public meeting at Fred Longworth High School at which he says 97 per cent of the 600 residents opposed the scheme.

He wants the task force to consider issues such as why the busway crosses busy roads causing unacceptable delays to commuters and why the public was not consulted again about the scheme in 2009.

Reporter Sophie Arnold will be running a live blog from the meeting. Follow @leighjournal or like the Facebook page for more information.