COUNCIL chiefs have finally revealed how much they paid to a media consultant hired to advise them on York’s community stadium project.

Jim Knight was paid £3,300 by City of York Council for 11 days’ work – £300 a day. He also claimed £492 in travel expenses.

He was hired to help the council promote the stadium project and to help develop its “communications strategy” for the scheme, but the expenditure was criticised by the council’s Conservative group leader Coun Ian Gillies.

The Press originally requested details of how much Jim Knight Media had received from the council last February, but the authority refused to say.

Following the paper’s inspection of the authority’s 2010/11 accounts, copies of all invoices relating to outside consultants and legal advice during this year were requested and have now been supplied.

Coun Gillies again criticised the use of Mr Knight as a consultant, saying: “This is another case of the council trying to put spin on a project which could be built on sand.”

Mr Knight was unavailable for comment but Bill Woolley, the council’s director of city strategy, said it was sometimes necessary to “utilise external expertise” with “value for money in mind”.

He said the council sometimes paid for legal and specialist services and said: “With a number of major ongoing projects in the city, we needed to supplement our in-house capacity to communicate progress about the community stadium. Mr Knight was engaged for a specific piece of work, which was completed and made a positive contribution to the project’s development.”

In total, the council spent £145,000 on legal and consultancy fees in 2010/11, the figures obtained by The Press showed.

Transport consultants Halcrow were paid £34,448.42; Gardiner & Theobald received £45,660.24; Five Lines Consulting received £19,375.92; and chartered surveyors Savills were paid £7,843.17.

Legal firm Kings Chambers was paid £4,150, while fees of £5,875 were paid to Walker Morris and £1,468.75 to Shulmans Solicitors.