Westminster deputy leader took gifts in 50% of his planning cases

The Westminster City councillor Robert Davis received gifts or hospitality from property firms involved in half of the planning applications his committee ruled on in 2016, an investigation reveals.

Davis stood aside from his council roles on Wednesday night after the Guardian reported that he had been entertained or received gifts almost 900 times, often from property industry figures, between 2012 and 2017 while in charge of planning in the London borough.

The Conservative councillor chaired the planning committee for 17 years but a detailed analysis of the 120 planning applications he considered in 2016 showed he was entertained by the applicant or their agents in 63 cases, and his committee granted permission on all but five of those occasions.

Gifts included a silver trowel from a developer whom the committee later awarded planning consent for 650 mostly luxury apartments and meals in the south of France and at many of London’s finest restaurants, including at the Ivy paid for by developers and their planning consultants.

In one case Davis met Robert De Niro, in New York, and was entertained by the actor’s development partner and the firm’s planning consultant. Davis’s committee later granted De Niro’s company approval for a 83-room boutique hotel in Covent Garden, London. Davis then lauded it as “one of the finest schemes we have considered for Covent Garden in years”.

Source: theguardian