THE future of Allerdale council’s leadership hangs in the balance.

Two councillors have resigned from their roles and mystery surrounds the future of another, meaning there is no majority party on the council, currently led by by an independent-Conservative executive.

Tory Mark Jenkinson, former deputy leader, stepped down earlier this week to concentrate full-time on his role as MP for Workington.

Labour’s Joan Ellis also resigned due to ill health.

But confusion surrounds the position of Mike Little.

Mr Little was elected to represent Aspatria as a member of the Putting Cumbria First party.

Last year he defected to the Tories, but it is now uncertain whether he remains a councillor.

He told the Times & Star he handed his resignation to the council, however after speaking to his employer he changed his mind and retracted it.

He said: “I’ve withdrawn my resignation, it wasn’t official anyway.”

He explained the resignation was emailed to a member of staff at Allerdale council and the official procedure had not been followed, meaning his original resignation was not valid.

However it is understood that due to council procedure, once a resignation has been submitted, it cannot be retracted.

At the time of going to press, Allerdale council was unable to confirm if Mr Little was still a councillor or not.

The only thing that is certain is that Mr Little has left the Conservative Party to rejoin Putting Cumbria First.

“I made a rash decision to go Conservative last year, I’m more politically aligned to Putting Cumbria First as I’m neither left nor right, I’m very much a centrist.”

With these changes, there would be 20 independent councillors, 16 of which are part of the Allerdale Independents group, but the number of Labour and Tory councillors sits even at 13 each.

Were the vacancies to be filled by Labour councillors, the political make-up of Allerdale could change dramatically.

It is not yet known when the full council will elect a new leader after Marion Fitzgerald's resignation from the role last week.

Alan Smith, former Labour leader of Allerdale council, said: “People that voted for change, got change - small change. This administration is chaotic and they’ve got to sort themselves out, if they can’t, they should step aside.”

Councillor Mike Johnson, interim council leader and leader of the council’s Conservative group, said he was not concerned about potential changes.

He added: “I feel comfortable with our position.”