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<div id="js-article-text" class="article-text wide"><h1>Still the BBC's black hole of Salford swallows your cash: ?15,000 on Gary Lineker's taxis. Star presenters commuting by jet. And now even the boss behind that ?1bn move north won't leave London</h1><ul></ul><p> By </p><p><span class="article-timestamp"><strong>PUBLISHED:</strong>22:32 GMT, 15 May 2013</span> <span class="article-timestamp"><strong>UPDATED:</strong>07:55 GMT, 16 May 2013</span></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">The webcams in the BBC Radio 5 Live studios at the station's shiny new ?1&#8201;billion headquarters in Salford do not provide the Beeb's most scintillating offering. <br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Indeed, the visual feed from the controversial and vastly expensive northern complex is more interesting for what it doesn't show, than what it does.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Anyone wishing to watch one of 5 Live's most high-profile presenters, Victoria Derbyshire,cheap ghd, host her mid-morning phone-in show is likely to be disappointed.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Many are the days when the webcam would show nothing but an empty studio while the disembodied voice of the presenter mysteriously fills the ether.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Rather suspiciously, you might think,ghd hair straighteners, on Tuesday she yet again presented her show from London, just hours after posting pictures on Twitter of herself glammed-up at the Sony Radio Awards, held the previous evening at the swanky Grosvenor House Hotel in the capital.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">It seems that she, like many of her highly paid BBC colleagues, shuns the Corporation's much-hyped MediaCity HQ, dubbed the Canary Wharf of the North.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">In a two-week period earlier this year,ray ban sunglasses, 44-year-old Miss Derbyshire, whose image dominates the walls of the entrance to the impressive building, presented her daily show from Salford only twice.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">During the three months after her show was first transferred from London to Salford, she spent only two weeks broadcasting from the North-West.</font><font style="font-size: 1.2em;"> </font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Officially, the Beeb excuses her absences for 'editorial and childcare' reasons.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">But according to colleagues, even when she does make an appearance at the studios near Manchester, Miss Derbyshire &#8212; who lives with BBC executive Mark Sandell and two sons in the South-East &#8212; invariably flies from Heathrow at her own expense, doesher show and returns in time to pick up her children from school.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">She isn't the only famous name who refuses to give up London for the north. Among others, Breakfast TV presenter Susanna Reid and Radio 5 Live host Richard Bacon continue to commute to and from London.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Just over a year after the state-of-the-art building in Salford Quays was opened by the Queen, it has already become a billion-pound white elephant and monument to the licence-fee-funded broadcaster's shameful profligacy.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">At the same time, hard-pressed residentsare furious over claims by BBC bosses &#8212; including former director-general Mark Thompson, who conceived the ludicrous scheme &#8212; that the venture would create 15,000 new jobs for local people. In fact,unemployment in the area has risen. <br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Scandalously, it was revealed last monththat only 34 of the 2,300 people working there have been recruited fromthe Salford area. </font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Now comes news that the BBC has been slammed by the National Audit Office for paying out ?24&#8201;million in over-generous allowances to make the 200-mile trek north more palatable to staff.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">It criticises the decision to give more than 90 employees 'exceptional' payouts to compensate them. Eleven staff received more than ?100,000 each, one getting ?150,000.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">According to the NAO report, one member of staff received an allowance for selling a second home in the east of England while retaining a London home. It also claims the BBC had 'inadequate' controls on the use of public money. The BBC Trust agrees the failings are 'unacceptable'.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">What a complete farce,Richard Dyson experts at loggerheads markets swirl, and all to placate those inside the Corporation who consider it to be too London-centric, and to appease the former Labour government which pushed for the taxpayer-financed folly in one of its heartland areas. <br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">No wonder former Blue Peter presenter Valerie Singleton recently joined the chorus of disapproval &#8212; adding her voice to those of such venerable BBC figures as Terry Wogan and John Simpson &#8212; and branded the Salford complex a waste of public money. <br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">It would be unfair to single out Victoria Derbyshire for her apparent aversion to Salford, considering that even her boss, BBC North supremo Peter Salmon,ghd sale, has steadfastly refused to up sticks from London.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Instead, according to the BBC's website,Mr Salmon, who is married to former Coronation Street actress Sarah Lancashire and enjoys a salary of ?375,000, receives ?2,375-a-month to cover his supposedly 'temporary relocation allowance'.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">In other words, he stays in Manchester at our expense during the week and goes home to leafy Twickenham, South-West London, at the weekends.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">In the last financial year alone, Salmon, who has held his post since 2008, received just under ?28,500 as part of his relocation package, on top of his wages.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">You may think that having run the BBC's operation in the north for five years, he might have been able to find a suitable permanent home close to work by now.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">How typical of the bloated Beeb that while the rest of the country faces austerity, the gravy train rolls on unhindered.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Thewastefulness is mind-blowing. A recent Freedom of Information request revealed the Corporation spent ?30,000 a week on travel costs after the relocation of Radio 5 Live, BBC Sport, Breakfast TV, plus the Children'sand Learning departments, to the MediaCity complex, which is also home to other northern-based broadcasters such as Granada TV. </font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Additionally, ?15,000 a year goes on taxis just to ferry Match Of The Day host Gary Lineker between Salford and his home in Surrey.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">One unnamed BBC executive charged ?785 for a single rail trip to the capital, and another made three return trips from London to the new northern HQ in a week, racking up fares of ?584.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">The grotesque waste of money was starkly illustrated by one London-based regular 5 Live freelance contributor who told me he used to take a short Tube ride to the station's old base in White City, West London. <br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Now, however, the BBC buys him a round-trip train ticket, which can cost up to ?308, to Manchester's Piccadilly station. At the other end, a car takes him to Salford,ray ban wayfarer, ten minutes away.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Then, after his brief 45-minute stint on air, the same car &#8212; which waits outside &#8212; ferries him back to the station for the two-hour train trip home. This whole charade takes more than six hours.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">'I could easily go to Broadcasting House in Central London and speak to the studio in Salford from a booth there, and the audience would be none the wiser,' he told me.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">'But the producers think it is more 'real' if I am physically sitting next to the show host. It is utterly bonkers, but completely typical of the BBC.'<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">No surprise, then, that in the last financial year, the number of journeys undertaken by BBC staff doubled to more than 26,cheap ghd,000.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Noris there just the monetary cost to be considered. At any one time, scores of highly paid BBC executives and staff are on trains, in taxis or on planes for hours on end, rather than getting on with their jobs.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">However,even the exorbitant travel costs pale into insignificance when weighed against the truly astronomical bill the licence-fee-payer has been picking up for relocating nearly 2,300 BBC staff who used to work in London. </font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Of them, 850 have been given ?11&#8201;million in so-called 'assisted location packages' to cover estate agent fees, stamp duty, furnishings and rent. In many cases, receipts of expenditure were not even required.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Others, like Peter Salmon, have taken advantage of the so-called 'temporary relocation allowance', under which they keep their main house in London and then have their rent paid by the broadcaster for their weekday 'crash pads' in Manchester.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Under the generous scheme, each member of staff is given an allowance of up to ?3,Herbs with a twist! Crab cakes with chives and dil,390 a month before tax, equivalent to ?40,680 a year, for up to two years.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Meanwhile, the Corporation is also offering to arrange the sale of houses on behalf of staff in the south, guaranteeing them the equivalent of 85 per cent of the market value if they cannot find a buyer. <br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">The Beeb also plans to relocate a further 1,000 staff from London in the next decade, ramping up costs even more (starting with BBC 3 later this year).</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Many high-profile staff still will not move. Among them is 42-year-old BBC Breakfast presenter Susanna Reid, who has refused to uproot her partner and their three sons from London.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Miss Reid,ray ban uk, who appears on air three days a week, takes the train from London in the evening and arrives in the north just in time to go to bed at a Manchester hotel.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">She then goes to work the next day and returns home to her family in the afternoon &#8212; before beginning the whole commute again.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Given such a gruelling schedule, it is little wonder that in 2011 former Breakfast TV presenters Sian Williams and Chris Hollins decided to take up other roles rather than make the trip north.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">They are not alone. Farcically, the two senior executives charged with overseeing the move made it clear that they preferred to stay in London.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">In 2010, Paul Gaskin, the ?190,000 human resources director, who was hired to persuade BBC staff to take positions in Salford, left after only two months because he did not want to move to Manchester.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">A year later, Richard Deverell, the chief operating officer in Salford,ray ban sale,County cricket performance review Luke Wells  Mai, moved to another job within the Corporation that kept him in the capital before quitting last summer for a job at London-based regulator Ofcom. <br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">And it was revealed that Guy Bradshaw, the consultant brought in to manage the day-to-day relocation of staff, actually lived 4,000 miles away in Kentucky with his American wife.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">More than half the London staff offered transfers to Salford have refused, despite bosses enticing them with all-expenses-paid jollies to the area, including coach tours of local beauty spots and lavish dinners at the swish Malmaison hotel in Manchester.</font><br></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Meanwhile, the very people the move was supposed to benefit &#8212; the residents of the predominantly rundown Salford &#8212; have gained little. No wonder community leaders are unhappy.<br>Stephen Kingston, the editor of the award-winning local online newspaper the Salford Star, told me: <br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">'We predicted that the only jobs for Salford people would be as cleaners, security and receptionists and that's exactly what has happened.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">'The truth is that unemployment has gone up here, so where are all the jobs we were promised?<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">'MediaCity is a big bubble that localpeople don't have access to. Given the amount of public money that has gone into it, you would expect Salford people to get more out of it.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">'Instead, people here say the heart is being ripped out of Salford just for the BBC. It's nothing less than social cleansing.'<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Cashis rolling in, however, for landlords of the swanky apartments in the exclusive Salford Quays enclave. While, house prices are tumbling in nearby districts, the prices of smart local properties popular with BBC staff are growing faster than anywhere outside London.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">GregDavies, of Reeds Rains estate agents in Salford Quays, says: 'Rents have gone up by 10 to 15 per cent in the past two years. Buy-to-let owners here are quids in.'<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Much of that rental money, it goes without saying, is being paid by licence-fee-payers in generous allowances for BBC staff.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Andit's not as if Beeb workers actually seem to like their new headquarters. Those I spoke to this week at the soulless, black and neon-painted offices, are gloomy. <br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Theyare instructed to brainstorm in brightly coloured 'collaborative pods' and,ghd hair straighteners, it is reported, are discouraged from having their own litter bins to stop them becoming 'territorial'.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">The poor morale is not helped by the fear of crime from gangs on the nearby rundown Ordsall estate. </font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">One male BBC employee was shot at with an air rifle as he cycled home and another was persuaded to hand over the keys to his Hertz hire car to someone posing as an employee of the company.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Such is the fear of attacks that security staff now offer to escort staff at MediaCity to their cars and local tram stations.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">RobertOxley, Campaign Manager at the TaxPayers' Alliance, says: 'While staff have been forced to vacate their homes in the south-east, the Corporation has allowed an exorbitant bill for temporary accommodation to be racked up.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">'It is also shocking how much licence-fee-payers' cash is being spent on hotels, trains and taxis merely to enable London-based guests to sit on a sofa in Salford when it would be far cheaper to talk to them from a studio in the capital.'<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">But a BBC spokesman insisted: 'Our Salford-based workforce has continued to grow and we have seen the first of our local apprentices and young ambassadors progress from their training schemes into permanent jobs.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">'Ten per cent of our workers live in the borough, and we continue to work in schools and colleges to support the long-term development of skills and experience.'<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Which sounds distinctly like platitudes &#8212; and, of course, of that ten per cent, a significant proportion are likely to be those who have relocated from London,ghd, not genuine local residents.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size:1.2em;">In the meantime, we can expect to carry on footing the enormous bill for the BBC's billion-pound Salford money pit.</font></p>            </div>

<div id="js-article-text" class="article-text wide"><h1>Still the BBC's black hole of Salford swallows your cash: ?15,000 on Gary Lineker's taxis. Star presenters commuting by jet. And now even the boss behind that ?1bn move north won't leave London</h1><ul></ul><p> By </p><p><span class="article-timestamp"><strong>PUBLISHED:</strong>22:32 GMT, 15 May 2013</span> <span class="article-timestamp"><strong>UPDATED:</strong>07:55 GMT, 16 May 2013</span></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">The webcams in the BBC Radio 5 Live studios at the station's shiny new ?1&#8201;billion headquarters in Salford do not provide the Beeb's most scintillating offering. <br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Indeed, the visual feed from the controversial and vastly expensive northern complex is more interesting for what it doesn't show, than what it does.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Anyone wishing to watch one of 5 Live's most high-profile presenters, Victoria Derbyshire,cheap ghd, host her mid-morning phone-in show is likely to be disappointed.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Many are the days when the webcam would show nothing but an empty studio while the disembodied voice of the presenter mysteriously fills the ether.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Rather suspiciously, you might think,ghd hair straighteners, on Tuesday she yet again presented her show from London, just hours after posting pictures on Twitter of herself glammed-up at the Sony Radio Awards, held the previous evening at the swanky Grosvenor House Hotel in the capital.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">It seems that she, like many of her highly paid BBC colleagues, shuns the Corporation's much-hyped MediaCity HQ, dubbed the Canary Wharf of the North.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">In a two-week period earlier this year,ray ban sunglasses, 44-year-old Miss Derbyshire, whose image dominates the walls of the entrance to the impressive building, presented her daily show from Salford only twice.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">During the three months after her show was first transferred from London to Salford, she spent only two weeks broadcasting from the North-West.</font><font style="font-size: 1.2em;"> </font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Officially, the Beeb excuses her absences for 'editorial and childcare' reasons.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">But according to colleagues, even when she does make an appearance at the studios near Manchester, Miss Derbyshire &#8212; who lives with BBC executive Mark Sandell and two sons in the South-East &#8212; invariably flies from Heathrow at her own expense, doesher show and returns in time to pick up her children from school.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">She isn't the only famous name who refuses to give up London for the north. Among others, Breakfast TV presenter Susanna Reid and Radio 5 Live host Richard Bacon continue to commute to and from London.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Just over a year after the state-of-the-art building in Salford Quays was opened by the Queen, it has already become a billion-pound white elephant and monument to the licence-fee-funded broadcaster's shameful profligacy.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">At the same time, hard-pressed residentsare furious over claims by BBC bosses &#8212; including former director-general Mark Thompson, who conceived the ludicrous scheme &#8212; that the venture would create 15,000 new jobs for local people. In fact,unemployment in the area has risen. <br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Scandalously, it was revealed last monththat only 34 of the 2,300 people working there have been recruited fromthe Salford area. </font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Now comes news that the BBC has been slammed by the National Audit Office for paying out ?24&#8201;million in over-generous allowances to make the 200-mile trek north more palatable to staff.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">It criticises the decision to give more than 90 employees 'exceptional' payouts to compensate them. Eleven staff received more than ?100,000 each, one getting ?150,000.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">According to the NAO report, one member of staff received an allowance for selling a second home in the east of England while retaining a London home. It also claims the BBC had 'inadequate' controls on the use of public money. The BBC Trust agrees the failings are 'unacceptable'.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">What a complete farce,Richard Dyson experts at loggerheads markets swirl, and all to placate those inside the Corporation who consider it to be too London-centric, and to appease the former Labour government which pushed for the taxpayer-financed folly in one of its heartland areas. <br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">No wonder former Blue Peter presenter Valerie Singleton recently joined the chorus of disapproval &#8212; adding her voice to those of such venerable BBC figures as Terry Wogan and John Simpson &#8212; and branded the Salford complex a waste of public money. <br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">It would be unfair to single out Victoria Derbyshire for her apparent aversion to Salford, considering that even her boss, BBC North supremo Peter Salmon,ghd sale, has steadfastly refused to up sticks from London.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Instead, according to the BBC's website,Mr Salmon, who is married to former Coronation Street actress Sarah Lancashire and enjoys a salary of ?375,000, receives ?2,375-a-month to cover his supposedly 'temporary relocation allowance'.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">In other words, he stays in Manchester at our expense during the week and goes home to leafy Twickenham, South-West London, at the weekends.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">In the last financial year alone, Salmon, who has held his post since 2008, received just under ?28,500 as part of his relocation package, on top of his wages.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">You may think that having run the BBC's operation in the north for five years, he might have been able to find a suitable permanent home close to work by now.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">How typical of the bloated Beeb that while the rest of the country faces austerity, the gravy train rolls on unhindered.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Thewastefulness is mind-blowing. A recent Freedom of Information request revealed the Corporation spent ?30,000 a week on travel costs after the relocation of Radio 5 Live, BBC Sport, Breakfast TV, plus the Children'sand Learning departments, to the MediaCity complex, which is also home to other northern-based broadcasters such as Granada TV. </font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Additionally, ?15,000 a year goes on taxis just to ferry Match Of The Day host Gary Lineker between Salford and his home in Surrey.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">One unnamed BBC executive charged ?785 for a single rail trip to the capital, and another made three return trips from London to the new northern HQ in a week, racking up fares of ?584.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">The grotesque waste of money was starkly illustrated by one London-based regular 5 Live freelance contributor who told me he used to take a short Tube ride to the station's old base in White City, West London. <br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Now, however, the BBC buys him a round-trip train ticket, which can cost up to ?308, to Manchester's Piccadilly station. At the other end, a car takes him to Salford,ray ban wayfarer, ten minutes away.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Then, after his brief 45-minute stint on air, the same car &#8212; which waits outside &#8212; ferries him back to the station for the two-hour train trip home. This whole charade takes more than six hours.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">'I could easily go to Broadcasting House in Central London and speak to the studio in Salford from a booth there, and the audience would be none the wiser,' he told me.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">'But the producers think it is more 'real' if I am physically sitting next to the show host. It is utterly bonkers, but completely typical of the BBC.'<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">No surprise, then, that in the last financial year, the number of journeys undertaken by BBC staff doubled to more than 26,cheap ghd,000.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Noris there just the monetary cost to be considered. At any one time, scores of highly paid BBC executives and staff are on trains, in taxis or on planes for hours on end, rather than getting on with their jobs.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">However,even the exorbitant travel costs pale into insignificance when weighed against the truly astronomical bill the licence-fee-payer has been picking up for relocating nearly 2,300 BBC staff who used to work in London. </font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Of them, 850 have been given ?11&#8201;million in so-called 'assisted location packages' to cover estate agent fees, stamp duty, furnishings and rent. In many cases, receipts of expenditure were not even required.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Others, like Peter Salmon, have taken advantage of the so-called 'temporary relocation allowance', under which they keep their main house in London and then have their rent paid by the broadcaster for their weekday 'crash pads' in Manchester.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Under the generous scheme, each member of staff is given an allowance of up to ?3,Herbs with a twist! Crab cakes with chives and dil,390 a month before tax, equivalent to ?40,680 a year, for up to two years.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Meanwhile, the Corporation is also offering to arrange the sale of houses on behalf of staff in the south, guaranteeing them the equivalent of 85 per cent of the market value if they cannot find a buyer. <br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">The Beeb also plans to relocate a further 1,000 staff from London in the next decade, ramping up costs even more (starting with BBC 3 later this year).</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Many high-profile staff still will not move. Among them is 42-year-old BBC Breakfast presenter Susanna Reid, who has refused to uproot her partner and their three sons from London.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Miss Reid,ray ban uk, who appears on air three days a week, takes the train from London in the evening and arrives in the north just in time to go to bed at a Manchester hotel.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">She then goes to work the next day and returns home to her family in the afternoon &#8212; before beginning the whole commute again.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Given such a gruelling schedule, it is little wonder that in 2011 former Breakfast TV presenters Sian Williams and Chris Hollins decided to take up other roles rather than make the trip north.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">They are not alone. Farcically, the two senior executives charged with overseeing the move made it clear that they preferred to stay in London.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">In 2010, Paul Gaskin, the ?190,000 human resources director, who was hired to persuade BBC staff to take positions in Salford, left after only two months because he did not want to move to Manchester.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">A year later, Richard Deverell, the chief operating officer in Salford,ray ban sale,County cricket performance review Luke Wells  Mai, moved to another job within the Corporation that kept him in the capital before quitting last summer for a job at London-based regulator Ofcom. <br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">And it was revealed that Guy Bradshaw, the consultant brought in to manage the day-to-day relocation of staff, actually lived 4,000 miles away in Kentucky with his American wife.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">More than half the London staff offered transfers to Salford have refused, despite bosses enticing them with all-expenses-paid jollies to the area, including coach tours of local beauty spots and lavish dinners at the swish Malmaison hotel in Manchester.</font><br></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Meanwhile, the very people the move was supposed to benefit &#8212; the residents of the predominantly rundown Salford &#8212; have gained little. No wonder community leaders are unhappy.<br>Stephen Kingston, the editor of the award-winning local online newspaper the Salford Star, told me: <br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">'We predicted that the only jobs for Salford people would be as cleaners, security and receptionists and that's exactly what has happened.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">'The truth is that unemployment has gone up here, so where are all the jobs we were promised?<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">'MediaCity is a big bubble that localpeople don't have access to. Given the amount of public money that has gone into it, you would expect Salford people to get more out of it.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">'Instead, people here say the heart is being ripped out of Salford just for the BBC. It's nothing less than social cleansing.'<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Cashis rolling in, however, for landlords of the swanky apartments in the exclusive Salford Quays enclave. While, house prices are tumbling in nearby districts, the prices of smart local properties popular with BBC staff are growing faster than anywhere outside London.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">GregDavies, of Reeds Rains estate agents in Salford Quays, says: 'Rents have gone up by 10 to 15 per cent in the past two years. Buy-to-let owners here are quids in.'<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Much of that rental money, it goes without saying, is being paid by licence-fee-payers in generous allowances for BBC staff.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Andit's not as if Beeb workers actually seem to like their new headquarters. Those I spoke to this week at the soulless, black and neon-painted offices, are gloomy. <br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Theyare instructed to brainstorm in brightly coloured 'collaborative pods' and,ghd hair straighteners, it is reported, are discouraged from having their own litter bins to stop them becoming 'territorial'.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">The poor morale is not helped by the fear of crime from gangs on the nearby rundown Ordsall estate. </font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">One male BBC employee was shot at with an air rifle as he cycled home and another was persuaded to hand over the keys to his Hertz hire car to someone posing as an employee of the company.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Such is the fear of attacks that security staff now offer to escort staff at MediaCity to their cars and local tram stations.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">RobertOxley, Campaign Manager at the TaxPayers' Alliance, says: 'While staff have been forced to vacate their homes in the south-east, the Corporation has allowed an exorbitant bill for temporary accommodation to be racked up.</font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">'It is also shocking how much licence-fee-payers' cash is being spent on hotels, trains and taxis merely to enable London-based guests to sit on a sofa in Salford when it would be far cheaper to talk to them from a studio in the capital.'<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">But a BBC spokesman insisted: 'Our Salford-based workforce has continued to grow and we have seen the first of our local apprentices and young ambassadors progress from their training schemes into permanent jobs.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">'Ten per cent of our workers live in the borough, and we continue to work in schools and colleges to support the long-term development of skills and experience.'<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Which sounds distinctly like platitudes &#8212; and, of course, of that ten per cent, a significant proportion are likely to be those who have relocated from London,ghd, not genuine local residents.<br></font></p><p><font style="font-size:1.2em;">In the meantime, we can expect to carry on footing the enormous bill for the BBC's billion-pound Salford money pit.</font></p>            </div>