Council spends nearly £300k of taxpayers' cash on three French Riviera conferences
Dudley Council spent nearly £300,000 of taxpayers' cash on three property conferences in Cannes – two of which were cancelled due to Covid-19.
The authority came under fire for spending an eye-watering £100,000 sending top civil servants and councillors to the South of France in March for an international property conference.
However, since then the Express & Star has obtained figures through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request that shows the true cost was nearly triple that figure.
Dudley Council paid £279,154 to Associate Events, for conference fees but has yet to be refunded for the cancelled conferences in 2020 and 2021.
Replying to the FOI request, Dudley Council said: "The council originally planned to attend Marché International des Professionnels d'Immobilier (MIPIM) in March 2020 and March 2021, but these events were cancelled due to Covid-19.
"Discussions with Associate Events are ongoing regarding the potential for reimbursement of any costs due which have arisen from MIPIM event being cancelled by the organisers in 2020 and 2021.
"The current position in relation to costs is as follows: flights, hotels and expenses for attendance for nine people in March 2022 cost £13,056. WMCA sponsorship for 2022 was £5,000.
"Payment to Associate Events in respect of the cancelled events and the one which went ahead in March 2022 cost £279,154.80."
Wollaston and Stourbridge Town Councillor Cat Eccles, who won the seat for Labour in May, criticised the council's leadership for wasting money during the cost of living crisis.
She said "It was bad enough hearing that £100,000 had been spent on this trip, but to now find out it's triple that amount is outrageous. Of course, I appreciate the need to attract investment in our borough, but right now our basic council services are struggling, and we desperately need to build more social homes.
"All the big projects underway currently are purely vanity projects for the Tory party, they don't help the average resident with the struggles they are currently facing."
She added: "This administration seem to live in a parallel universe where Dudley isn't facing a cost of living crisis, and all our council services run perfectly. Focus needs to be shifted away from the big shiny projects and concentrate on making life easier and better for our residents."
Marché International des Professionnels d'Immobilier, is the world’s largest property conference, attracting investors, agents, bankers, and landlords and Dudley Council showcased land available for development in the borough. Nine councillors and officers flew to France for the event in March.
Dudley Council leader Councillor Patrick Harley defended the outlay.
He said: "We have huge ambitions for Dudley borough residents and businesses and attendance at the world’s largest property market puts us at the top table to secure multi-million pound investment into Dudley. On the back of our attendance we have already welcomed dozens of investors and developers into Dudley for site visits around a number of our key development areas.
"We continue to have discussions with around 30 strong leads from MIPIM, both developers and investors. There are many prime sites for housing development across the borough, just three of these alone – Wellington Road, Daniels Land and Portersfield would bring in around £120million through development, and also bring in around £0.75millon worth of council tax each year from around 650 new homes."
He added: "This is significant investment potential which is only made possible through our big ambitions for the borough and will add to the £1billion worth of regeneration which is already underway."
