The Taste Brick Lane Awards event on March 23 – commissioned by Mayor Lutfur Rahman, who also attended – saw the TV chef judge the street’s best curry houses, and featured entertainment from jugglers and dancers.

The council said in response to a Freedom of Information request by a resident that it spent £47,176 of taxpayers’ money on the one day event.

Conservative Cllr Peter Golds called the sum “extraordinary”.

Reported by the Hackney Gazette. You can read the full story here. 

I am a journalist and author. I am a journalist at the UK edition of WIRED magazine. In 2015, my first book Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. My second book Reed Hastings: Building Netflix, was published in March 2020. I created FOI Directory in 2012 and have maintained it in my spare time ever since.