Silence from council over £70k unused Wrexham city logo project
UPDATE: This story has provoked a range of responses since publication this morning – for readers taking a detailed interest we first asked questions on the matter around 18 months ago, and queried the council in August. The story was written in November and finally published today – the public Sell2Wales notice dated April 2021 can be found here.
We have however had a response from the political side of Wrexham Council.
Council Leader Mark Pritchard has told us, “Myself and Executive Board members were not aware that the Civic Leaders Group had procured this, that they had spent this money on this branding.
“Myself and the Executive Board know nothing of it.
“I would expect if there was a change of branding for Wrexham County Borough Council a report would come through the Executive Board for openness and transparency”.
Original story from this morning below…
Lead councillors have declined to comment on a £70k project that was due to see a new logo for Wrexham launched.
In 2020 an eight point plan from the town’s “Civic Leaders Group” was signed off by the Executive Board of Wrexham Council. The ‘common purpose’ report is no longer public but gave a ‘vision’ of the town centre’s strengths and also its weaknesses and puts forward eight ideas to build on those strengths and address the weaknesses’ including the creation of a high quality prospectus for Wrexham, with a ‘clear brand’.
As we further reported the refined plan was the development of a “brand for Wrexham” to promote the town and county locally up to the national stage. The branding would highlight how the area is a “vibrant, attractive place to work, study, live, shop and visit” with around 3-4 months work via an external agency to develop the ‘fresh and engaging’ brand identity.
A second phase should have seen the planning and operation of a 6 month campaign to promote the brand, with wider ‘out of home area’ style promotion to take Wrexham’s name wider.
The project was funded by Welsh Government, Wrexham Council, and both Coleg Cambria and Wrexham Glyndwr University also making a contribution.
The University led the procurement ‘on behalf of the local Civic Leadership Group’ back in 2021.
The budget for the contract was £70,000 inc VAT, funded by the Welsh Government, Wrexham County Borough Council, Wrexham Glyndwr University and Coleg Cambria.
£50K inc VAT was for the “delivery of the brand and associated assets”, the remaining £20K inc VAT was to be spent, by the winning bidder, “on a 6 month campaign” predominantly but not exclusively ‘digital’. Members of the Civic Leadership Group were due to get monthly updates on progress.
The initial specification of the project noted, it should have seen a “rollout of new brand to communications teams of CLG organisations and to a full range of businesses across Wrexham to maximise engagement with and promotion of the new brand”.
Documents since shown to Wrexham.com detail the logo output project, with a ‘Wrexham Brand’ and a ‘Made in Wrexham’ suggestion from the branding company.
As Wrexham Council part funded the exercise, and the Chair of the Civic Leaders Group is council Chief Executive Ian Bancroft, and the Executive Board signed the ‘vision’ we asked for comment from the relevant Lead Member on the output of the project, and also if Wrexham Council sees their contribution as value for money and why.
We also invited an Executive Board member to give their favourite example of the new brand being used in public.
We also asked if the council would share a copy of the branding project output.
There was no comment.
We also understand there is a reluctance from some Lead Members to associate themselves with the project in any way.
Another source indicated their frustration that the work has been ‘sat in a dropbox unused’.
A year ago we asked senior council leadership about the progress of what was quoted as a £70,000 ‘branding and marketing campaign’, back then we were told it was “Lead by Glyndwr University, with support from Welsh Government, and the piece of work supported both the City of Culture work in terms of branding and also supporting ongoing Wrexham Council placemaking work”.
The Civic Leadership Group for Wrexham was established in 2018 in partnership with Wrexham County Borough Council and is made up of “Civic Leaders” from a range of public and voluntary organisations and businesses in Wrexham who are ‘united around an ambition to support Wrexham achieve its full potential’, in particular through a focus on, and investment in, Wrexham.
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