A FRESH row has broken out among Derry council members over the official name of the city.
In the latest twist to the long-running row, the SDLP backed a DUP motion to remove the word Derry from a plaque marking the reopening of the city's Guildhall after renovations.
While the name of the local authority is Derry City Council, the official name of the city remains Londonderry. The plaque was expected to include the sentence: "This Guildhall was reopened on Thursday 30th May by the mayor of Derry, Councillor Kevin Campbell."
However, DUP members demanded that the word Derry be removed and replaced with "the city" to present a more neutral view. When the issue was put to a vote, SDLP members backed the DUP to support the word change. Sinn Féin members voted against but the proposal was carried by 15 votes to nine.
SDLP councillor Gerard Diver said the claims that the word 'Derry' was removed from the plaque were inaccurate.
He said: "In fact the word Derry appears four times in English and once in Irish in the first 11 lines. "We didn't want the council gridlocked on this issue. It is certainly not the SDLP view that clear and specific references to Derry should be avoided."
Mr Diver said his party concluded that the removal of the word Derry in the description of the mayor was "reasonable" and was not an attempt to "airbrush" the city's name.
The row follows a similar dispute over the naming of the new Derry City and Strabane District Council. Earlier this week it emerged that the DUP was mounting a legal challenge over the decision to include the word Derry in the new super council title.