Barking council boss given nearly £10k in West Ham tickets after studio deal
A town hall leader bidding to become an MP has accepted close to £10,000 worth of free Premier League tickets from a Los Angeles movie company after his council approved plans for its new film studios.
Darren Rodwell, the Labour leader of the London borough of Barking and Dagenham, has been entertained 19 times by MBS Group in a luxury corporate box at West Ham’s stadium in the wake of deals paving the way for MBS and its parent company, Hackman Capital Partners, to create 12 sound stages on former industrial sites.
Rodwell has been a prominent advocate of the Eastbrook Studios project, describing it as the “reel deal”. It has involved the borough selling key plots of land to the studio operators and changing planning restrictions.
Since September last year he has regularly attended West Ham matches, sometimes twice a week, as a guest of MBS, with each visit valued at £526. Rodwell, a committed West Ham supporter who has his own season tickets, has seen games against Manchester City, Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea, Manchester United, Brighton, Newcastle United, Burnley, Watford, Leeds and Southampton as well as Genk, Viborg, Dinamo Zagreb, Eintract Frankfurt and Steaua Bucharest.
Hackman Capital Partners owns studios globally where productions such as The Sopranos, ET and The Late Late Show with James Corden have been shot.
The arrangement – which Rodwell described as “co-hosting” – has sparked concern that it may lead to the “perception, if not the reality, of undue influence” and “reputational risk” to him and the council of accepting gifts from those who stand to benefit from their decisions.
The council’s code of conduct states: “Holders of public office must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to people or
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