HE famously resigned in a row that led to his leader quitting and chief executive Tim Pilsbury taking early retirement but Councillor Fred Yeulett is back.

As the chairman of a new ‘conduct’ committee set to keep wayward councillors in order.

His appointment was announced on Monday following the disbandment of Fenland Council’s Standards Committee and its replacement by this new committee- dubbed ‘standards lite’ by critics.

The new committee will not have the power to suspend councillors; instead the best complainants can hope for is a censure and possible re-training.

But one member not on the new committee is Chatteris councillor Florrie Newell who, after five years on the former standards committee, has been dropped.

“I’m not happy with it at all,” she said. “I thought I would have been left on it. Instead I was thanked for the work I had done and that was that.”

She added: “Obviously my face doesn’t fit. Maybe it’s because I speak my mind.”

Cllr Newell said she was concerned by the lack of independents on the new committee which also has Councillor Will Sutton and Councillor Michael Humphrey as members.

Cllr Newell said an initial assessment of a complaint brought by county councillor Cabinet member Steve Count against three March town councillors had been started.

“The new committee began to look at the complaint but I was told it was confidential and asked to leave,” she said.

The row which forced Cllr Yeulett to step down as deputy leader came in December 2009 and followed his disclosure to Mr Pilsbury of an email marked “private and confidential” and sent out by Councillor Alan Melton.

It sparked a row - emailgate- in which Tory councillors backed Cllr Melton and forced the triumvirate of Cllr Yeulett, Cllr Geoff Harper, then leader, and Mr Pilsbury to stand down or leave.