We all know that our councils enjoy nothing more than using our money to polish their public image every once in a while, but this week Staffordshire County Council and Birmingham City Council have had to deal with the public backlash…
No, this isn’t a doodle, this is the £7,000 squiggle that taxpayers in Staffordshire are complaining about. Not entirely sure how you would break down that cost but it’s pretty amazing what meaning you can project onto a meaningless loop-the-loop when you have some costs to justify and some residents to impress. It’s supposed to be a Staffordshire knot, but differs in the fact it doesn’t look much like one according to locals.
The council’s press officer clearly had The Beginner's Guide to Blagging to hand when he came up with the following:
"The logo aims to reflect the county council as a modern organisation, here to serve the people of Staffordshire. It also underlines a unified sense of pride in Staffordshire and its heritage." (The Sentinel)
Pride?? Where do you get that from? Perhaps we’re looking at it the wrong way up…
Meanwhile the opposition to Birmingham City Council’s new £2.8m website has formed into something of a guerilla movement as a local web aficionado fashions his own alternative site with information ‘scraped’ from the original. He’s now inviting the rest of us to rebel and assist him as he develops a cheaper, more useable alternative (Birmingham Mail).
It’s not the prettiest thing in the world at the moment, but this must be massively embarrassing for the council who let the drum roll for their own project build for a little too long before revealing what we’re led to believe is a pretty substandard facility.
And the problem certainly isn’t going away, as enthusiastic volunteers involved with BCC DIY are even holding a special day at Moseley Exchange where they’ll brainstorm for ideas for how to build their community-generated version.
No/low costs, higher public approval rate, more bespoke – couldn’t this have been done to start with?