Brighton and Hove taxpayers paid nearly £40,000 on hosting last month’s Council of Europe event, The Argus can exclusively reveal.

The figure has been labelled “ridiculous” and “a burden” as it has emerged that the conference’s declaration was all but agreed in advanced.

The total, obtained by The Argus following a Freedom of Information request, includes £10,000 spent on flagpoles and £1,574 on new posters as the existing ones in the Brighton Centre were deemed “inappropriate” by the Foreign Office.

The council has defended the spending, saying that the city has benefited from more than £1 million of income from the conference.

Among the other items paid for were 44 lamppost banners at £5,780, memento silk scarves and pocket squares at £900 and additional street cleaning at £10,695.

The council also spent £4,731 for a cover for the security fence.

An official document added: “It is a re-usable and pleasing to the eye and cosmetic cover-up of a harsh looking and intrusive security fence.”

Nigel Carter, chairman of Brighton and Hove UKIP, said: “I don’t understand why we have had to pay for this.

“The Foreign Office should pay for the majority, not Brighton and Hove taxpayers.”

A council spokesman said: “The conference delivered about £1 million in economic benefit to the city.

“But more than that, the press and TV exposure we received was absolutely priceless.

“Brighton was chosen over and above many other destinations in the UK, and the conference delegates made use of the many hotels, bars, restaurants and attractions in the city while they were here.”

He confirmed that the Foreign Office had deemed the existing “entertainment-led images” of bands and famous singers inappropriate and made the authority spend £1,574 on new posters.

Robert Oxley, from the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “Residents will be shocked to discover that after the European bandwagon has left town they are footing such a large bill.

“This expensive talking shop delivered little of value yet local taxpayers are picking up the tab.”

The Ministry of Justice said that the overall cost was £450,000 with delegates enjoying seafront hotel rooms, day trips to nearby castles and wildfowl reserves and luxury dinners in the Pavilion.

On top of this, officials said that the nine-page document now known as the Brighton Declaration did not change at all from the agreed document handed around the day before the conference.

Mr Carter said: “It is all political theatre. Imagine what an entrepreneur like Alan Sugar or Richard Branson would say. They would say, ‘Hang on a minute that sounds like a lot – what are we getting out of it?’.”