When is a council spending £70,000 on supporting public transport a bad thing?

Quite possibly when it is £70,000 blown on first class train fares for councillors and senior staff. As the Blackpool Gazette reports of its Conservative-controlled council:

BLACKPOOL Council has spent more than £70,000 on first class rail travel in the past 18 months.

The figure – today slammed by one senior councillor as “astonishing” – was revealed amid claims some councillors and senior officers were wasting taxpayers’ cash on expensive “jollies” to London …

The Gazette highlights the spending today as part of our It’s Your Money campaign to investigate how public cash is spent – and sometimes misspent.

Liberal Democrat councillor and former mayor Robert Wynne said first class tickets should be axed at a time when many taxpayers were struggling to cope during the recession.

He said: “I’m astonished and appalled by the amount being spent on first class rail travel. I don’t think the people of Blackpool elected their councillors just so they could go on jollies.

“Every penny of council tax-payers money is vital.”