A senior councillor has accused planning officers of bias over plans to install more solar panels at the authority's headquarters.

Medway Council's own planning staff told members they should not approve a scheme for the panels at Gun Wharf in Chatham.

This was because they believed they would be harmful to the Dock Road building, a concrete and brick office block built in the late 1970s which is also Grade-II listed.

Cllr Adrian Gulvin (Con) accused planners of not being professional in setting out the report which would inform committee members' decisions.

The authority's planning committee meeting was due to debate the plans last Wednesday but the discussion was deferred at the council's request.

The report explained how even though there are already solar panels on the building, they are internally facing and therefore their visibility is restricted.

It went on to say how installing the panels would not be "sympathetic to a building's appearance" and would "introduce a modern, incongruous, and out of character feature to a prominent elevation of the Grade-II listed building and therefore would be harmful to the architectural and historic significance of this building".

While facing questions from the council's business support overview and scrutiny committee, Cllr Gulvin – who is portfolio holder for resources – explained how one of his project teams were behind the scheme and planning committee members had watched a presentation setting out its benefits.

The Walderslade representative said: "I have got to say I was extremely disappointed at the response from our planners.

"I honestly believe that report which was supposed to be going to the planning committee last week was one of the least professional reports I have seen on a planning committee for a long time.

"Normally, the officers give us the pros and the cons of each application and then give us a reasoned argument on why they had made their argument either for or against approval.

"It struck me, in that report, that the person who wrote it had made up their mind; we weren't going to have it and that would be the end of it.

"Well it's not going to be the end of it, I'll tell you now. We will have another report that's more balanced that goes to the planning committee."