Council officials have pointed to the rules that they say prove a controversial new bus route has not yet been rejected.

They have denied claims by heritage campaigners that a vote against the Bus Rapid Transit system through Newbridge means it has been officially turned down.

The Bath Heritage Watchdog group says the first of three votes at a chaotic meeting of councillors over the hotly-debated Bus Rapid Transit scheme had legal force - and that should be the end of the matter.

In fact, there were three votes on the night - including one which agreed to defer a decision on the bus route through Newbridge until another meeting.

Bath and North East Somerset Council insists that that is the vote that counts - and that the matter was definitely deferred by its development control committee.

It was challenged by the group to identify the piece of planning law which proved campaigners wrong and today it came up with Part 4F Rule 46 of its own constitution.

Councillors had been on the verge of killing off their own authority’s scheme last week, in a move that would have put a giant question mark over a £50 million plan to tackle congestion in Bath.

A motion to approve the BRT and the expansion of the Newbridge park and ride site failed, but politicians were told they had to have a positive vote to reject the application.

The vote on that was tied after Tory Cllr Brian Webber, who had voted against the first motion, abstained in the follow-up one.

There was then a third vote, which backed the idea of deferring the planning application.

But the pressure group, which is critical of the council’s transport strategy, says that as far as it is concerned, the first vote stands - and that the application has been thrown out.

A statement on the group’s website says: “The result was to refuse, and there is no provision in any of the planning legislation for a local planning authority to rescind a decision to refuse.  So the only thing that can be proposed to be deferred is a decision on the motion to refuse, which was not legally necessary and should not in any case involve anybody who voted to permit the planning application.”

It adds: “It (the council as planning authority) does have a legal obligation to state planning reasons for that refusal to complete the documentation, but there is no requirement for anything more than a consensus from the members who were responsible for the decision to refuse.”

The group says it will be keeping a close eye on what the official minutes of last Wednesday’s meeting - which have yet to be published - say.

A council spokesman said: “There needs to be an affirmative motion to do something.  The members couldn’t agree on the motion to refuse, so the only affirmative was the positive vote to defer.”

The council's argument is that there had to be a positive vote for rejection rather than just a vote against approval.

And it added in a statement: “The Local Government Act 1972 requires a majority in favour of any course of action, in this instance whether to grant or to refuse planning permission. The council constitution reflects this fundamental legal principle in Part 4F Rule 46. In accordance with this, on the first vote to permit in line with officer recommendations there was no majority. On the second vote to refuse for various reasons there was no majority. It was not until the third vote took place that a majority view emerged - that was to defer the application.”

The relevant part of the constitution - according to B&NES - can be seen at http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/BathNES/councilanddemocracy/councillorsdemocracyandelections/Constitution/ConstitutionPart4F.htm