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This is what £8,000 of public money buys Croydon at MIPIM

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Day 1 at MIPIM 2015 in Cannes. Note how busy the Connected Croydon (and Ruskin Square) stands are...

Day 1 at MIPIM 2015 in Cannes. Note how busy the Connected Croydon (and Ruskin Square) stands are. Not.

When the Conservatives were in power in Croydon, the spending on sending a delegation to Cannes for the annual developers’ champagne “junket” (© Tony Newman) was at least announced at a council meeting in the Town Hall.

This year, under a Labour council elected on a platform of “openness and transparency”, nearly £8,000 of tax-payers’ money has been spent on sending three senior Croydon officials to the four-day MIPIM conference, a decision which was never discussed, nor aired or challenged, in a public forum. Executive director Jo Negrini was able to use her “delegated authority” to book her plane tickets to the south of France.

Read our report on MIPIM and Croydon Council’s lingering love affair with the event here.

Yesterday was the first day of the 2015 conference, and as our photograph, above, shows, it looks to be eight grand very well-spent, at a time of austerity, job cuts and loss of frontline services around the borough.

We are sure that Westfield and the other private developers with a stake in the borough will be delighted with Negrini’s prudent use of public money on their behalf.

 


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