East Midlands Mayor Claire Ward has faced criticism after figures showed more than £17,000 has been spent on chauffeur-driven travel since March 2025.
Data published by the East Midlands Combined County Authority shows £17,733 was spent on chauffeurs for Ms Ward between March 2025 and April 2026.
The spending includes a sharp increase in March and April 2026, when £8,405 was recorded over the two-month period. That was close to the amount spent during the previous 11 months combined.
The figures include 14 separate payments for chauffeurs, ranging from £330 to £990. Earlier published records named chauffeur providers including Pinnacle, based in Stapleford, and Blacklane, based in the United States. More recent entries list the spending only as “chauffer”.
Ms Ward, who was elected as the first East Midlands Mayor in 2024, receives an annual salary of £93,000 and is also able to claim expenses. The mayor leads the East Midlands Combined County Authority, which covers Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Derby and Nottingham, and has responsibilities including transport, skills, housing and economic development.
Opposition councillors have questioned whether the level of spending is justified, particularly given the authority’s transport role and the cost pressures facing residents and public services.
Councillor Alex Dale, Conservative opposition leader on Derbyshire County Council, said: “While the Mayor has an important role to carry out across a large region, a spend of more than £17,000 on chauffeur-driven travel in just 13 months strikes me as very excessive.
“Residents rightly expect elected representatives to provide value for money, particularly at a time when many families are feeling the squeeze from the rising cost of living.
“I struggle to see how this level of spending can be justified and why travel by car or public transport, like everyone else, hasn’t been considered in these cases.”
Councillor Lucy Care, Liberal Democrat group leader on Derby City Council, said the spending “seems a lot” and called for more detail on the journeys involved.
She said: “I would like to know more about the purpose of the journeys and whether those journeys could have been taken by more sustainable modes of transport.
“She is supposed to be supporting cycling and public transport use. It would be good that as far as possible she is leading herself in doing that.
“There can be good reasons for needing to be driven somewhere. She is obviously a high-profile person and if she is doing a public role she needs to be accompanied, but how many of these visits were needed for the job, how many were for publicity purposes and for how many could she have been accompanied on public transport?”
Councillor Rachael Hatchett, speaking on behalf of the Green Party group on Derbyshire County Council, said she recognised there may be time and security considerations, but said the mayor should also use public transport where possible.
She said: “I appreciate that Mayor Claire’s time is precious and I also appreciate there are security considerations in her travel, but it means that the Mayor is isolated from the realities of everyday life for public transport users and I would urge her to improve our bus network so people have better options than using their cars, especially at a time of high fuel costs.
“It would be good to see Mayor Claire mixing public transport with her use of chauffeur-driven cars.”
Councillor Teresa Cullen, a Broxtowe Alliance member of Nottinghamshire County Council, described the spending as “shocking” and “eye-watering”.
She said: “I do not understand. Unless she has lost her driver’s licence, why does she need to be taken everywhere by chauffeur? That is a shocking amount of money to claim for a chauffeur.
“I can’t see any justification for it. I am not the Mayor and I don’t have to cover the whole of the East Midlands, but I have been a councillor since 2015 and I have never claimed any expenses, let alone for a chauffeur to take me anywhere.
“When I was Mayor of Broxtowe I refused to have a taxi or a chauffeur to take me anywhere because I thought it was a waste of public money.
“I do think it is a waste of money. That is an eye-watering sum of money to spend on chauffeurs. That sum of money could have paid for something that could have made a difference.”
Cllr Cullen said residents in her Beeston Central and Rylands division had raised concerns about the reliability of the 18 bus route between Stapleford and Nottingham, run by Nottingham Community Transport.
She said: “£17,000 would have probably been enough money to make that bus service efficient for a year and that is what is at stake. It is shocking.”
Cllr Stephen Reed, deputy leader of the Reform UK administration on Derbyshire County Council, said: “The Mayor was elected by the people of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire and it is up to her in her role as Mayor how she spends their money.”
The combined authority said travel arrangements are considered individually and take into account operational requirements, efficiency, safety, confidentiality and the ability to work while travelling.
A spokesperson for the authority said: “EMCCA is a large regional authority covering a population of 2.2 million people.
“The Mayor of the East Midlands, as a significant elected figure in the region, is expected to represent the region at a range of meetings, events and engagements with external partners and stakeholders across its geography, with a particular emphasis on attracting new investment into the region and supporting the local economy whenever possible.
“Travel arrangements are considered on a case-by-case basis, taking into account operational requirements, efficiency, safety, confidentiality and the ability to work while travelling.
“While we make every effort to arrange engagements in the same area where possible, there are occasions when the Mayor is required at multiple meetings and events in different parts of the region on the same day.
“On those occasions, using a driver allows the Mayor to use travel time productively for calls, briefings, meetings and correspondence rather than spending several hours behind the wheel.
“The Mayor also uses public transport and her own vehicle where appropriate, with travel arrangements determined by the requirements of any given day.
“All expenditure is subject to the authority’s governance processes and is assessed to ensure it is necessary, proportionate and represents value for money. Spending is published regularly in the interests of transparency.”
