There were extraordinary scenes at Helston Town Council on Monday when two members walked out of a crunch meeting, bringing proceedings to an abrupt end – and leaving a bewildered audience looking on.

A cross section of the town’s organisations had gathered to finally hear whether they would be given a share of £53,000, a third of the money made from the sale of the former 3 Penrose Road community centre in 2012.

They were first given a sniff of the cash back in January 2013, although since then the council has to and fro-d between distributing the money or keeping the full £159,000 originally made from the sale of the building to go on a new community facility.

The 16 bidding groups were to be disappointed once again, however, after councillor Ronnie Williams first stormed out, declaring mayor Mike Thomas had “let the town down” in leading the discussion about splitting the money, rather than keeping the whole for a community centre.

With only five of the 12 members there, this left just four councillors remaining – prompting councillor John Boase to state he did not believe this to be enough to make a fair decision.

Afterwards he explained that he and wife Nicola Boase would have had 50 per cent of the vote between them, with Mr Thomas and Martine Knight the remainder, hence his decision to also leave.

As a result, the meeting was unable to legally continue due to there not being enough members, known as a “quorum.”

Councillors Jonathan Radford-Gaby and deputy mayor Mark Upton had attended the meeting, but stated prejudicial interests in two of the applying organisations – Mr Upton chairman of the Epworth Hall and Mr Radford-Gaby’s wife Wendy a director of the South Kerrier Alliance – and they withdrew from the decision.

Councillors Nicola Roberts, Aiden Harrison, John Martin, Gillian Geer, and Justine Hornsby were unable to attend.

The meeting had begun by representatives from seven of the 16 organisations explaining why they needed the money.

Their words were in vain, however, as before any debate could begin Mr Williams stood up to say: “This money, in good faith, was being put aside for the future of a community centre.

“At the moment the community thinks of us very, very little. The community itself has completely lost trust in us.”

He urged Mr Thomas, as mayor, to “take the meeting back” and consider what the money was “meant for” – “to give the people, the community of this town, a chance to become part of the town again.”

However, Mr Thomas pointed out it was not in his power to do so, with the whole council voting to distribute the money to organisations.

Declaring himself “out on a limb” throughout the process, Mr Williams responded: “I think for you to become a strong mayor for this town, I want for you to represent this community as they should be represented.

“I feel so strongly about this I will take no further part in this meeting.”

Mr Thomas reiterated he was unable to change the decision of the council and urged Mr Williams to stay, for his expertise, but the latter replied, “The leader of this town has let the town down” and left.

Mr Boase apologised to the members of the public who had given up their time to attend, but said: “I don’t think we can make a fair decision with that money.”

He later said he would ask for the debate to be put on the November meeting of the full council, when “hopefully there will be more members present.”

Speaking after the meeting, mayor Mr Thomas acknowledged: “I am disappointed by what was said.”

He added there were legitimate reasons some members could not attend and stressed: “It’s not a question of people avoiding this meeting.”