SWINDON Borough Council spends less than most councils in Britain on cars for the mayor.
Research by the pressure group the Tax Payers’ Alliance shows that 207 local authorities across Britain have spent a total £4,513,607 on 252 cars owned or leased for mayors, lord mayors, lord provosts and their equivalents since 2015, despite widespread cut backs and council tax rises over the same period.
Swindon Borough Council spent a total of £13,397.02 on two luxury cars, a BMW five series and a Hyundai Ioniq - that’s £7,000 less than the mean average spend per council of £21,804 over the period.
A Swindon Borough Council spokesman said: “We do not think that paying a little over £13,000 since 2015 to run the Mayor’s car is unreasonable. This figure includes road tax, insurance, fuel and other such expenditures, which most drivers know are not cheap.
“We note with interest that other councils are spending almost £100,000 and are driving around in Jaguars and Bentleys. We consider our environmentally-friendly Hyundai perfectly suited to the Mayor’s needs. It is also worth noting that, again, unlike other councils, we only ever run one Mayoral car at any given time.”
Gloucester City Council spent a similar amount, £11,041. Reading Borough Council spent a whopping £61,345, while Wiltshire Council spends nothing on luxury cars.
All of the 372 local authorities in the UK responded to the FOI requests sent out by the Tax Payers’ Alliance, of these 207 spent money on mayoral cars, or around 56 per cent.
Commenting on the findings of the research, John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers are tired of hearing local authorities say they have no money left when there are still instances of excessive spending. 
“Some travel will of course be necessary to conduct duties but families who struggle to pay their council tax bill will roll their eyes at the thought of their hard-earned money being spent on Bentleys and Jaguars for politicians to attend functions.
“40 per cent of councils didn’t lease or buy cars, so all other local authorities should follow that example and encourage civic leaders to use cheaper forms of transport. Every penny wasted on excessive travel expenses is money that could be going towards social care or bin collections.”
In February Swindon Borough Council voted to raise council tax by 4.99 per cent, which equates to a £62.44 increase for an average Band D property.