Jeremy Corbyn picked Ian Lavery as party chairman. The development cost per seat at Ashington was exceeded only by Arsenal’s Emirates stadium

Tens of thousands of pounds in taxpayers’ money was spent on staff wages, utility bills and entertaining at a football club chaired by Ian Lavery, the Labour Party chairman, an investigation by The Times has discovered.

Jeremy Corbyn’s party chief is under increasing pressure as it emerged that his non-league team relied on discreet cash support from a development corporation owned by the local Labour-led council.

The authority’s accounts have been queried by auditors and are under scrutiny from police over unspecified matters.

A £1 million development at Ashington, a non-league club in Northumberland, paid for by a cash-strapped local authority, was more expensive per seat than any stadium built by a Premier League team apart from Arsenal’s home, the Dubai-sponsored Emirates, an analysis by