North Ayrshire Council has insisted that spending £150,000 on a day of celebrations to mark the Queen’s Baton Relay was good value - despite being the biggest outlay in Scotland outwith the Commonwealth Games host city Glasgow.

The amount spent dwarfed neighbouring authorities Inverclyde (£26,931) and East Ayrshire (£30,666), and even Scotland’s capital Edinburgh spent just over £99,000. Glasgow City Council spent £500,000.

Our own coverage of the Baton Relay in July, which included Chewin’ the Fat star Karen Dunbar’s leg between Vikingar! and Magnus and the baton’s return ‘home’ to Millport, showed just how much the community embraced the celebrations in the build up to the Commonwealth Games - culminating in a concert in Ardrossan featuring the Red Hot Chili Pipers.

The council spend was broken down into entertainment, infrastructure and support (£94,815), crowd safety and traffic management (£22,626), publicity, photography and route dressing (£26,237) and transport and logistics (£6,329). Community and voluntary groups also played a major part in the development of the events, benefiting from additional grants to host their events.

With continued tightening of belts across public services still a reality the council argued that the £150,000 - itself part of a broader £500,000 legacy programme - represented good value for money. However, a cabinet report approved last November did indicate that, while the costs of the relay were not known, they would be ‘commensurate with the amount spent by other local authorities” and councillors agreed to allow officials to make financial arrangements with partners.

The spokesperson said: “The council and partner agencies will examine the progress of the Legacy Plan including monitoring the uptake of sporting activities at the likes of KA Leisure and North Ayrshire Athletics, amongst others.

“Initial feedback suggests that people are already responding, which is evident in the recent increase in club activities.” “The funding spent on QBR Day was just over £1 per head for the people of North Ayrshire and, we believe, represents excellent value for money, given the lasting legacy of community engagement and benefits.

“The majority of our QBR expenditure was on entertainment, infrastructure and technical support and included the cost of transporting the baton ‘home’ to the Isle of Cumbrae where the wood used for the baton handle was sourced.

“This involved hiring rigid inflatable boats - one for the baton bearer and QBR staff, and two for the media (including the BBC).

“Like every council across Scotland, we also staged an ‘End of Day’ event to round off the QBR celebrations.” North Ayrshire’s approach has gained national recognition from various bodies - including Sportscotland, Creative Scotland and Scottish Athletics - and has been cited as an example of good practice in using events and sporting themes as tools for creating social and economic benefit.

The council spokesperson confirmed that the impact of the event would be measured in the longer term to weigh up the success against the outlay on both the baton relay events and the significant number of grants of £500k, £1,000 and £2,000 made to groups and individuals holding public events and activities.

“Since the QBR route for North Ayrshire did not include a visit to our island community of Arran, the council funded 300 free return ferry tickets to bring Arran residents to the mainland and allow them to join in the End of Day celebrations.

“Given the high number of community groups and residents supporting and participating in this event, the cost of hiring infrastructure - such as staging, crowd control barriers etc - was considerable.”