A CITY'S Mayor and his deputy have had to resign from a council's decision-making body because they were on it illegally.

Durham City's first citizen, Independent councillor Jeff Lodge, who took office at the start of the month, and Deputy Mayor Bob Wynn, the Liberal Democrat deputy council leader who was in charge of finance, stepped down from the city council's cabinet yesterday.

Lesley Blackie, the council's solicitor, told the cabinet that she wrongly advised them they could still sit on the cabinet, although the council's constitution bars them from being on scrutiny committees.

The Local Government Act prohibits mayors and their deputies, or council chairmen and vice-chairmen, from being on executive bodies, also known as cabinets.

"It means the mayor and deputy mayor are disqualified from being on the cabinet,'' she said. "I can only hold my hands up and apologise for giving the wrong advice.''

Later, Labour councillor Mike Syer said: "What an embarrassment for the new mayor and deputy mayor."

A council spokesman later blamed an oversight for the gaffe but said it would not invalidate any cabinet decisions.

"The Local Government Act says that if we made a decision, and did not know about the exclusion, the decision will still stand," he said.

"We will be making sure that it does not rise again.''

Councillor Lodge, one of the longest-serving members of the council, held no portfolio and was deputy mayor last year.

Council leader Fraser Reynolds said former deputy leader Grenville Holland would step into Coun Wynn's shoes and Coun Lodge's place would be filled in due course.

He said he was sad to see the two men having to give up their places on the cabinet.