Breaking: Councillor Colette Goulding has been suspended

Dear readers – it’s finally happened: Liverpool councillor Colette Goulding has been suspended from the Labour Party following The Post's investigations into Big Help Project and Knowsley Foodbank.

Goulding was elected as councillor for West Derby Muirhead in 2023. At the time, she was a trustee and assistant CEO at Big Help Project — a now collapsed homelessness charity pioneered by her partner, former Labour councillor Peter Mitchell. 

In April 2024, we revealed that vulnerable tenants of Big Help Project were being left living in squalid conditions, and a Charity Commission investigation was launched to investigate allegations of financial malpractice within the charity.

We then showed how over £5 million was transferred out of charities connected to Mitchell and Goulding, and into private companies owned by the couple and their associates. One of those companies, Big Help Green, purchased the home Mitchell and Goulding live in.

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After we published that story, we asked both Liverpool City Council and the Labour Party whether they still had confidence in Goulding, but received no meaningful response. Since then, Goulding has also been declared bankrupt —as has Peter Mitchell.

The final straw seems to have been our story last weekend, which showed that an additional £195,000 was siphoned out of Knowsley Foodbank, a charity connected to Big Help Project. That money was then transferred into organisations connected to Mitchell and Goulding. Knowsley Foodbank is now subject to investigations by the Charity Commission and the Serious Fraud Office.

A Labour Party spokesperson confirmed Goulding has been suspended from the party. They told The Post: 

“Following allegations, we can confirm that Cllr Goulding has had the Labour whip suspended pending the outcome of an investigation.”

Being suspended by Labour does not mean that Goulding will lose her seat, but means that she will sit as an independent for the time being. 

Lib Dem leader Carl Cashman told The Post is was "about time" Colette Goulding had the whip suspended. He continued: "I think residents will be wondering what took them so long and if any other Labour councillors are implicated in this scandal. Colette remains a councillor in West Derby. She now must do the right thing and resign from the council."

We have contacted Goulding for comment and will update this story if she responds.