A QUESTION mark hangs over the political future of a member of Bromsgrove District Council who has not attended meetings for several months.

According to Labour sources, Cllr Len Boden, one of three Tory councillors for the Catshill ward, has told villagers he plans to resign.

But the leader of the Tory-controlled council, Cllr Nick Psirides (Norton), said this week Cllr Boden is still occupying the seat he won in an autumn by-election in 1999.

He said: "I have asked council officers if they have received Cllr Boden's resignation and they tell me they have not.

"Until such time as they do he is still a member of this authority."

However, it is understood that privately all attempts by council bosses and councillor colleagues to contact Cllr Boden at his home, in Golden Cross Lane, about the authority's affairs have failed.

There has been no response to a letter from the Advertiser/Messenger asking him to comment.

The council's head of administrative services, Vince Harrison, confirmed that Cllr Boden had not been to meetings since before Christmas when he changed from having a public to ex-directory telephone number.

At that time he is understood to have informed the council he would no longer claim financial help for telephone rental charges.

His fellow councillors declined to comment publicly.

Cllr Boden, a former Catshill parish councillor, won the seat in October 1999 when he beat his Labour opponent by 151 votes.

It became vacant in September of that year on the death of Pam Collins.