County Hall’s corporate scrutiny committee (CSC) last night launched a broadside against the Isle of Wight Council’s plans to shut five schools.

Citing insufficient evidence as well as community and social impacts, the panel recommended the primaries remain open and the “whole process” be referred to the council’s new committee system of governance, due to take effect from May.

Leading closures critic Councillor Michael Lilley spearheaded the move which was backed by a majority of the committee including councillors Warren Drew, Clare Mosdell, Rodney Downer, Chris Jarman and Ryde Town Council’s Cllr Simon Cooke.

The Green Party’s Cllr Joe Lever and Cllr Claire Critchison voted against it alongside Pan and Barton’s Cllr Geoff Brodie and the leader of the Isle of Wight Conservatives, Cllr Ed Blake.

They previously supported a defeated motion put forward by Cllr Blake which, though similarly expressing disquiet over a lack of evidence, recommended cabinet “carries through with the closures where appropriate” but “gives serious consideration” to CSC’s concerns.

In a fiery attack on Cllr Lilley’s proposal, met with cries from the public gallery, Cllr Brodie said: “Sometimes when you’re a councillor you have to make decisions or recommendations that are unpopular – that’s what’s happening under the cabinet at the moment with this whole issue.

“You need to show a level of responsibility and I’m getting a little worried that you’re not – that you’re arguing on behalf, purely, of small sections of the Island.

“The bottom line is, the whole primary school system on the Isle of Wight needs to deal with surplus places and it’s quite clearly evident, no matter which schools are on the list, there will be a campaign against it.

“But sometimes people have to stand up against that. Now if you are genuinely saying that in almost 3000 pages that you all tell me you’ve read, that you are not convinced that an argument has been put for every single one of those schools…then you’re being entirely disingenuous.

“I don’t know how you look in the mirror.”

Cllr Mosdell hit back: “I have made some really difficult decisions when I was a cabinet member – I closed four mental health day centres having thoroughly researched them.

“I went to every single one, I brought to cabinet and to scrutiny exactly why they should be closed.

“I’ve made brave decisions and I stick by decisions but they have to be thoroughly researched, I have to be thoroughly convinced and I have to know that the argument I am putting forward is not just purely on a financial basis without managing the mitigating circumstances.

“The cost that it has to the public purse if this is done wrong is actually huge.”

Applause erupted from the gallery.