How Much Did The Council Spend To Bring The Coke Truck To Town?

A Freedom of Information Request submitted to Wrexham Council has revealed the overall cost paid by the Council for Coca Cola to bring their Christmas HGV to Wrexham.

The arrival of the Coca Cola truck in town generated a mixed response from the people of Wrexham; and while many seemed to largely embrace the event and turned out into the town centre, there were questions from others regarding the potential costing to the Council to host the event.

Prior to the visit of the truck a thread was started on the Wrexham.com Forums questioning the decision based on the product itself, later in that thread one of the posters revealed a Freedom Of Information request they had placed.

Wrexham.com has heard various speculation to the cost to the Council of bringing the truck to town varying between Coke paying tens of thousands of pounds for the privilege , to the Council paying Coke similar amounts. The FOI reveals that the hire cost of Queens Square was waived, £70 spent on barriers and road closed signage, and other staffing time. Promotion of the event was bundled into existing (non specified) spending.

The FOI queries how much Coca Cola paid to use Queens Square, the cost of staffing / additional security and the amount spent on promoting the event.

The FOI reveals that there was no charge to Coca Cola to use Queens Square for the day.

A second question posed in the FOI focuses on the cost of staffing for the event and questions if any additional security staff were brought in for the event.

Overall a total of eight Council staff supervised the event at various times throughout the day. The FOI response states: “A total of eight at various times during the day, but not all on duty together. The total at any one time was a minimum of one for the set up to a maximum of 5 at the busiest times.”

The FOI goes onto query the total staff cost for their involvement, with the FOI stating that no overtime has been paid to staff. In total the staff hours on the day totalled over 42 hours, with late working being ‘claimed back as TOIL’ – Time off in lieu.

No additional staff or security were brought in to help supervise the event.

The final question asked “How much did the Council spend on promotion of the event?”

The response was given from two departments, Assets and Economic Development said: “No separate cost to the Council. It was included in the general Christmas promotion material fliers etc which we would have produced anyway (e.g. Victorian Market etc). Coca Cola supplied their own press release pack for us to use if we wished.”

The reply from Corporate and Customer Services said: “The Council’s corporate Communications and Social Media team promoted this event via social media and the press at no cost to the authority.”

The FOI also reveals that the overall cost by the Council on the event was £70, which covered the cost of security barriers and a road closure sign.

The cost of Queens Square is usually £150+vat, and several paid promotional methods have been used* eg. full page newspaper adverts to promote Christmas events, however on the latter they would likely have been printed with events regardless of the Coke Christmas truck.

You can follow the debate on the Wrexham.com Forums here, or our Facebook Page on https://www.facebook.com/wrexhamdotcom !

(* All Christmas and Coke Truck articles & promotion on Wrexham.com have been for free)