FORMER Lancashire County Council leader chief executive Ged Fitzgerald yesterday resigned for his current job with Liverpool City Council.

He held the post of chief executive with the Merseyside authority which he took after leaving County Hall Preston.

Mr Fitzgerald is one of four men, including LCC leader Cllr Geoff Driver, currently on bail until May 22 on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and witness intimidation.

He recently failed in an legal effort to to overturn a warrant to arrest him and search his home as part Lancashire police's 'Operation Sheridan' by Lancashire Police.

The High Court judgement on the case said the operation was ‘an underlying investigation into corruption in local government’.

The other two man on bail as part of the police inquiry are Mr Fitzgeralds's successor as Lancashire County Council chief executive Phil Halsall and David McElhinney (chief executive of the now defunct One Connect)

Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, said yesterday: “Ged Fitzgerald has resigned from his post as Chief Executive Officer of Liverpool City Council with immediate effect.

"I can confirm that he wrote to me this morning and tendered his resignation, which the council has accepted.”

Mr Fitzgerald was suspended by the council last autumn following his arrest in May last year and it had begun the process of removing him from office - a procedure which was expected to come to a head at the authority's Annual General Meeting on May 23.