A FALMOUTH town councillor has said she will apologise after making a negative comment on an online feature about discount chain store Trago Mills.

Cllr Zoe Young has been told to say sorry on her councillor Facebook page after referring in the comment to the founder of the store's views on homosexuality in a newspaper column he wrote back in 1998.

A complaint was made to Cornwall Council by a member of the Robertson family who own the discount stores in Cornwall and Wales, including Newton Abbot, Liskeard and Falmouth.

An investigation was launched by Cornwall Council and Cllr Young was told that she had breached the councillor's code of conduct.

At meeting of Falmouth Town Council last night, town clerk Mark Williams read out the findings of the investigation into the complaint by Cornwall Council's monitoring officer.

"The monitoring officer has advised that he has found a breach of the Members Code of Conduct," he told councillors.

"This was councillor Young’s posting of an inappropriate comment online about a local company Trago Mills.

"The monitoring officer has recommended that councillor Young should make an apology on her Facebook councillor social media page with regards to the comments made about a local business."

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Following the statement Cllr Young said she would apologise if her comments had been misconstrued.

“I clearly made an error by making the comment without making clear that I disassociated from the views of Trago when I was reporting them," she said.

"If that was the breach which led to the complaint from the owners of the stores. I apologise for not making that clear.”

Mr Williams said the issue was more about the comment being associated with councillors and was about the role of office rather than what was said.

The comments referred to were originally made in January 1998 by Trago Mills founder Mike Robertson in his weekly newspaper column in the store's adverts under the name Tripehound. He died in 2001.