Mountains of money: Westminster council official in charge of the Marble Arch mound fiasco was paid more than the authority’s Chief Executive with a £220,000 salary making him the authority’s highest-paid employee
- Oxford Street improvement director Elad Eisenstein earned a 220,000 salary
- He was Westminster City Council’s highest paid employee, surpassing the CE
- Mr Eisenstein oversaw the controversial £6million Marble Arch Mound project
- He resigned a year later after internal review found mound’s costs ‘devastating’
The Westminster City Council official who oversaw the controversial Marble Arch Mound project was the local authority’s highest paid employee during his tenure – surpassing even the chief executive.
Elad Eisenstein was appointed as Oxford Street district improvement director with a salary of £220,000 in October 2020.
His role placed him charge of a £150 million regeneration programme, including the eye-popping tourist attraction.
Mr Eisentstein earned even more than the £217,545 paid to the local authority’s chief executive Stuart Love.
Elad Eisenstein was appointed as Oxford Street district improvement director with a salary of £220,000 in October 2020
The £6million artificial hill was erected next to Marble Arch as a way to lure shoppers back to Oxford Street, following a drop in sh
The Marble Arch Mound installation in central London includes a viewing platform which allows visitors the opportunity to look out over the area
Their salaries were revealed in a document outlining the pay of all 179 Westminster City Council workers earning above £68,000 a year.
It is also significantly higher than the £161,401 salary paid to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Mr Eisenstein was also received a generous pension contribution of £24,441.
At the time he joined the council, Mr Eisenstein was hailed as a ‘a cities and regeneration expert with two decades of experience’.
But he stepped down just a year later after a highly critical internal review into the mount project, costs were described as ‘avoidable’ and ‘devastating’.
The mound attracted a mixed response, including from comedian Matthew Highton on Twitter
The Marble Arch Mound installation at the time it opened to the public last July
The council’s deputy leader, Conservative Councillor Melvyn Caplan, also resigned following the trebling of the original £2 million set aside for the mound.
The £6million artificial hill was erected next to Marble Arch as a way to lure shoppers back to Oxford Street after 17% of its shops shut following the pandemic, but it received a mixed reception.
At the time of its opening in July last year, the 25metre hill was already reported to be suffering in the extreme heat, with questions asked about whether it would last until its end date of January 2022.
It is due to be dismantled in the coming weeks.