The Ukip leader of Thanet District Council has revealed he fell into arrears with his council tax bills for four years running – and faced a court summons in each of them.

The admission from Cllr Chris Wells comes after the Thanet Extra revealed he had been taken to court by his own council last year after missing two monthly payments.

Mr Wells has now told the Thanet Extra he faced court action after he missed council tax payments every year since 2012 but emphasised he had paid everything he owed the same year and at no cost to the taxpayer.

He said he had decided to come clean over his missed payments because he was aware “political opponents wanted to score points over what is a private matter”.

He told the Thanet Extra he wanted to focus on improving the council further after an independent review praised the way it was being run.

“I can say with a clear conscience that nothing illegal took place and advice was taken from the relevant monitoring officers at all times”

In a statement setting out his situation, he reiterated he had experienced financial difficulties from 2012, which led to him being briefly bankrupt.

He said: “It is widely known I had encountered financial difficulties in my private life resulting in a brief period of bankruptcy in 2013-2014, commencing in December 2013 and annulled in May 2014, just into the financial year 2014-2015.

“To prevent a flood of expensive Freedom of Information Act requests sponsored by political opponents to score points it seems appropriate to make public that similar council tax payment delays existed in those years.

“All is paid, and the story is now, in places, four years old, but some opponents continue to wish to drag these matters, which are essentially private matters, into the public domain.”

“I can say with a clear conscience that nothing illegal took place and advice was taken from the relevant monitoring officers at all times.”

Mr Wells, who represents Cliftonville East ward and lives in Broadstairs, is a public sector management consultant.

He said: “I’d been self-employed for some years and, as everyone knows, there are occasions when you are not paid for contracts as quickly as they might be.

“That is what happened to me and money I should have had wasn’t there. I had to make decisions about what were the vital things for budgeting and what were the things that could be deferred.”