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. 

Matthew Burgess
http://www.mattburgess.co
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.