REVEALED: A council in Essex borrowed £1 BILLION from local authorities across the UK - then invested most of the cash in money-making ventures. Now it refuses to say who it borrowed from and what it invested in thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2020-0… 
Thurrock invested most of the money in the solar industry, including up to £420 million in a single company, that then used the cash to buy more than 50 solar farms across the UK. But there are questions about the business model and the risk to public money
The borrowing and investment was overseen by the council's finance director - largely outside democratic and public scrutiny. It was also he who decided to refuse FOIs about the £1 billion policy. In an interview with @TBIJ he openly wondered if he'd gone too far
Thurrock has repeatedly refused to say which councils it borrowed £1 billion from or how it invested at least £702 million of that money. But our investigation found it was largest local authority investor in a solar bond scheme operated by Rockfire Capital Ltd
We were able to trace £74 million of payments to the company, which has used public money to become a major player in solar energy. Thurrock's money was used to buy 15 solar farms which the company now argues - in court papers - are riddled with "defects"
All the deals, council finance director Sean Clark told @TBIJ, were prompted by "intermediaries" approaching the council with money-making opportunities.
"Word then gets around that we do these things and people come to us,” he said.
"Word then gets around that we do these things and people come to us,” he said.
Clark said these "intermediaries" didn't advise the council to invest. So who did? Not the council's main financial advisers, who weren't consulted about the huge investment programme and later left their role with the council due to "differences of opinion"
There is also evidence that the council's borrowing limit was breached by £103m without the required authorisation of councillors, and that officers failed to give opposition members oversight of the investments, despite adopting a policy which stated they had to
This story comes as it emerges the Treasury is poised to ban local authorities from making commercial investments. Earlier this week we revealed some councils had become completely reliant on rental income to fund services thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2020-0…
Our partners with this investigation were the @FT, who have written a great, in-depth report focused on one of the companies Thurrock has invested in and potential risks to public money ft.com/content/7a01b3…
This map shows the extent of Thurrock's borrowing. So far we've been able to trace loans from 150 local authorities (including police and fire authorities) across the UK. @cboutaud created tool that you can search to see if your council is among them thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2020-0…
Thurrock is understood to be the biggest council investor in a solar bond scheme connected to Rockfire Capital, which used £432m of local authority money to buy up solar farms across UK. Since the first purchase company founder Liam Kavanagh has received nearly £8m in dividends
The company robustly defended it's business model when contacted during our investigation. Shortly after this contact its website was taken offline and it remains offline three months later
