A bit of background on this because it’s a bit of a saga.
Firstly, Telford & Wrekin Council have been running a “shadow company” for about two years now, secretly building up brand awareness within their sphere of influence and spending in excess of £1.3m of taxpayers money. The company was supposed to be called “Telford First” but they were pipped to the post by a couple of enterprising gentlemen who have come to be known as “the two John’s” who registered the name Telford First Ltd the weekend before the hastily arranged official launch of the company.
One of the John’s is the owner of the Telford Council Watch forum and the other John is a moderator there and a local charity worker who has been on the receiving end of the council’s unscrupulous tactics when he was running a charity. Because of the Telford First fiasco, staff have allegedly been sent an email from someone very high up in the council warning them not to visit or participate in the forum either at work or at home and that the forum will be monitored and anyone that can be identified will be “dealt with”.
To fund Telford First’s unexplained multi-million pound drain on Telford council tax payers, the council have been cutting budgets and staff. Employees being transferred to Telford First or whatever it ends up being called are being forced to transfer out of the public sector.
There are some serious questions that need to be asked of the people at Telford & Wrekin Council who are either elected or employed to serve the public. It simply isn’t acceptable to spend vast sums of taxpayers money on pet projects that deliver little or no benefit to the public and bullying their own employees into silence is not only wrong but illegal.
Telford & Wrekin Council have a duty to spend taxpayers money wisely and for the benefit of the public. Telford First has already cost taxpayers over £1.3m and hasn’t actually achieved anything yet. The City Region has cost tens of thousands of pounds at the very least and doesn’t exist yet. The public have not only been kept out of the decision making process but they have been deliberately kept in the dark until the very last moment.
It’s time for a regime change at Telford & Wrekin Council.
