For a strange reason there doesn’t appear to have been much published about Durham County Councillors expenses claims this year.

Mine are detailed in a permanent page on this blog. (see left)

I can’t for the life of me understand why some councillors see fit to have to go to County Hall every day and claim travel expenses. We have telephones and email which most councillors can use and some councillors just seem to turn up to get the travel money. To see claims of several thousand pounds for travel when very few residents can claim travel expenses leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

All the claims for the last financial year can be found here http://content.durham.gov.uk/PDFRepository/CouncillorsAllowances1011.pdf

The lowest claims were £0, the highest £4498. Clearly in such a big county some councillors will have higher claims, having to travel much farther than others, but some live just a few miles from County Hall, are not on Planning Committees which requrie travelling farther and still claim thousands.

In total, councillors travel expenses totalled £113,792,  enough money to resurface over 30 kilometres of footpath. That’s rather a lot of footpath! The rules need changing. Perhaps the Echo could do a map of Councillor locations and expenses claims.

ps. My travel claims for the last few years :

2009/10 £65

2010/11 £0

2011/12 (so far) £0