Doncaster councillors suspended

Four leading councillors in Doncaster have been suspended from the local authority's ruling Labour group following a new set of revelations concerning mispractice in the troubled authority.

Former leader and deputy leader, Peter Welsh and Ray Stockhill, and two senior committee chairmen, Peter Birks and John Quinn, have been suspended from their positions as Labour councillors while an investigation is carried out into their role in a series of planning decisions made over the past five years.

Malcolm Glover, the council leader, said the suspensions had been agreed with the national Labour Party. Doncaster is currently the subject of a major police inquiry following revelations earlier this year that leading councillors had been on foreign trips at the council's expense without proper authority.