Carmarthenshire Council not a Rotten Borough

By Jonathan Williams

Carmarthenshire County Council have been refuting claims that they will withdraw adverts from local papers over negative press.

The controversial claims, made by The Private Eye magazine in their latest edition relate to their article “Ad enough” in their Rotten Boroughs section.

Private Eye Magazine printed the following:

Paranoid Carmarthenshire Council still hasn’t grasped that in a democratic society a public body should be open to scrutiny from the people it exists to serve, the voters, and the press.

Last year the Labour/Independent council had blogger Jacqui Thompson arrested and thrown in a cell for trying to film a council meeting.

And last month it threatened to withdraw ads from the South Wales Guardian after the paper carried a report of an Ammanford town council meeting at which members of the smaller council expressed traders’ concerns that regeneration work by the county might drag on and affect Christmas trade.

Bread and butter local paper stuff but dangerously subversive to Carmarthenshire’s “press manager” Debbie Williams, who emailed the council marketing department:

“Due to the continuing negative publicity by the Guardian………..I do not think we should be placing adverts with them until this is resolved.”

Two years ago the rival Carmarthen Journal nearly went under after the council pulled £200,000-worth of advertising because the paper had run a “negative” story.

Meanwhile Welsh assembly member Rhodri Glyn Thomas has accused the council of “creative accounting” in respect of its own propaganda sheet, Community News. It says the cost of producing the unread rag, estimated at around £23,000 per bi-monthly edition, is offset by £18,000 in advertising and sponsorship.

But Thomas says the council “cannot distinguish between adverts that are paid for internally and externally.”

“The county newspaper is loaded with adverts which the local authority itself provides……(so) much of that £18,000 is coming from within the council’s taxpayer-funded budgets.”

However, the council dispute the claims and Chris Burns their Assistant Chief Executive (Customer Focus & Policy) wrote to Mr Thomas to say that:

“Cllr. Madge was not involved in placing, or withdrawing, any advertising in the South Wales Guardian, and knew nothing of the matter until he received communication from the Editor.”

On the email that was presumably sent to Mr Thomas, originally coming from a Mrs Julie Thomas and a Mrs Debbie Williams (press manager) Mr Burns wrote:

“The intention was to meet with the Editor next week to discuss concerns that had been raised in the Ammanford Town Centre Management meeting last week regarding a front page story in the Guardian.”

On withdrawing advertising from the Guardian:

“In the meantime one single advertisement was temporarily put on hold. We spend quite a lot with the Guardian and there is no intention to stop this advertising. This was made clear to the Editor at the time.”

The Council say that they were merely addressing concerns raised by local traders that suggested the town would be closed for Christmas due to the ongoing regeneration work and were worried about the story deterring people from visiting Ammanford.

The Council themselves were not critical of the Guardian article either with Mr Burn writing that:

“I cannot see any reason why this would have led to us “remove advertising completely”. “

And finally:

“We are hoping to meet up with the Editor next week to share with him the concerns that were expressed, primarily by local business people, and to seek his help in promoting as positive an image of the town of Ammanford as we can, in order to attract shoppers and investment to the area, and not to put people off from visiting. “

The Council spends in excess of £350,000 a year advertising in newspapers and this figure does not include advertising on local radio. It is understood that the dispute between the paper and the council has been resolved though the council currently has no plans to complain to Private Eye over their article.