A Liverpool councillor and former cabinet member lobbied for a planning application from his friend to be pushed through more quickly, an investigation has found.
Back in 2015, Cllr Abdul Qadir, sent an email to then Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson expressing “deep concern and disappointment” at a perceived lack of urgency and “irrational decision making” around a planning application being pursued by his friend and the owner of the business he worked for. That communication has been found to be in breach of the city council ’s code of conduct following an investigation into the Picton ward councillor.
In August this year, Cllr Qadir stepped down from his role as cabinet member for neighbourhoods after it was revealed he had links to a large stalled development scheme in Vauxhall through the Liverpool-based Vega Group, which owns MV Canal, the subsidiary company behind the scheme. Cllr Qadir has been a director of Vega Group company Vega Trading since September 2014.
