The Press Complaints Commission found “no grounds” to continue an investigation into a complaint made about the Skegness Standard.

The paper published an article about a planning row at the Little China Takeaway.

The article Big Trouble at Little China was alleged to have breached the Commission’s Code of Conduct relating to the publishing and correction of inaccurate or misleading statements.

But the Commission said that newspapers are allowed to express opinion provided they clearly distinguish between comment and fact and that in this instance it didn’t consider that readers would be misled.

The takeaway’s owner claimed that a local councillor had lobbied officers in breach of local government regulations.

The affair had also been investigated by the Ombudsman whose report the councillor was referred to by a pseudonym.

But he was named in the Skegness Standard article and also claimed the article had been inacurrate.

In a letter to both the paper and the complainant the Commission said it had studied his claims carefully and readers would not have been misled.

It said: “The objections raised were reviewed within the context of the article as a whole, taking into consideration the requirements of the Code of Practice.

“The remedial action taken and offered by the Standard provided a reasonable remedy under the Code and in the circumstances found no grounds to continue its investigation.”

The Commission acknowledged the complainant’s concerns that the article had been inaccurate but said that it had been presented as claims and quotes from the takeaway’s owner and the piece had at no point stated that the Ombudsman had found against the complaint.

The letter said: “Moreover the Commission noted that the newspaper had published a duly prominent article, although not a front-page article as originally suggested, which had put forward the complainant’s side of the story and emphasised the Ombudsman had declined to investigate a complaint against Coun Michael Clark.”

The Commission also concluded that Coun Clark’s name had been widely connected with the matter in the public domain and therefore there had not been any breach of privacy by using his real name in the article.