Cllr Townsend argued at the July full council meeting: "We’ve had the issue with aligned and unaligned independents that were new to the nature of this council that brought a level of confusion to the appointment of Cllr Whitaker.” But on Thursday night, Cllr Townsend moved to withdraw the motion, saying: “I would like to do this for the following reason. “We had six members who were missing from the meeting on July 15 who actually heard all the debate and all the contributions.” Seconder Cllr Birtwistle agreed to withdraw the motion ‘with regret’, which the full chamber then agreed to. Cllr Whitaker said after the council meeting: "It went well for me tonight, the motion to remove me from audits and standards and then subsequently as chair was rescinded by the proposer and the seconder.