£2m bill for BBC travel between Manchester and London

The BBC has spent £2 million on travel expenses between London and Salford over the past two years, according to a freedom of information request by the Telegraph. The paper claims £1.84 million has gone on train travel and a further £77,000 has been spent on flights between Manchester and the capital. A spokesperson for the BBC said "The BBC is a major broadcasting organisation with production bases across the UK... so some element of travel is inevitable." The paper also claims the amount the corporation spends on train travel has increased by nearly 30 per cent over the past 12 months and that the cost includes transport for guests on radio and television programmes as well as staff. According to the Telegraph more than 10,500 train journeys were made in 2009/10 costing over £805,000. The bill for 2010/11 rose to over £1 million and included over 13,500 journeys. The amount is said to cover all train travel for journeys between London and Salford booked through the corporation’s intranet, and all flights from major London airports. The figures also cover a period of time when some staff were still based at the BBC's Oxford Road offices. In a separate FOI the Manchester Evening News reports that they have received figures that show a further £850,000 has been spent on travel to Manchester between May and December 2011. Of that total, £650,000 was spent on rail journeys, £160,373 was spent on taxis and £45,158 on flights, including a £1,502 flight to Dubai. The BBC spokesperson added: "We are mindful that we spend public money and we work hard to keep this expenditure to a minimum." "Some of these costs will be bookings for multiple passengers as the information provided from our booking system does not detail the number of tickets purchased on each booking." The BBC now has 400 journalists based in Salford although some staff including some high profile presenters still choose to commute from London either on a weekly or daily basis. The corporation has maintained that it has a policy not to pay travel expenses for freelance presenters who live in the south east but work in Salford.