Council sold collector’s chairs for £100
Vintage designer leather chairs sold by a council for £100 each and replaced at a cost of £12,000 have been fetching thousands online.
Sixty seats embossed with a coat of arms were commissioned for Darlington’s council chamber, opened by Princess Anne in 1970.
Most of the chairs, by Peter Hoyte, the renowned British furniture designer, were sold on ebay for £100 each by the council two years ago.
But a Freedom of Information request showed the council spent £17,710 on 77 new chairs to replace them, £12,000 more than they received from the sale of the old ones.
Now it has been found that one pair of the chairs was put up for sale on a vintage furniture website for £7,500, while another pair was shipped to Japan for £4,500 after restoration.
Cllr Anne-marie Curry, the council’s Lib Dem leader, described the decision to sell the chairs as a “huge mistake”, while independent councillor Kevin Nicholson said it was an example of the council’s “hastiness and silliness”.
The council said the decision was not based on revenue but to allow a more “productive and flexible” use of town hall space. A spokesman said the old chairs were 40 years old and were replaced by seats more suitable for a council chamber that doubled up for weddings and other public activities.