Council Spending Hundreds of Thousands of Public Money on Rebranding.

Council Spending Hundreds of Thousands of Public Money on Rebranding.

The full cost of Local Government changes in Cumbria may not be known for a decade or more but since April 2023 changing the name above the door of the old councils replaced by Westmorland and Furness Council has so far cost hundreds of thousands of pounds in public money a Freedom of Information request has uncovered.

A freedom of information request submitted to Westmorland and Furness Council asking the council to provide details of all costs associated with re-branding across the council area as a result of local government reorganisation.

The council has confirmed that since April the councils has spent hundreds of thousands on putting the councils name on things to cover up the branding of Eden Council, South Lakeland Council, Barrow Bourgh Council and Cumbria County Council.

Among the list of rebranding costs, the council has said that Re-branding the councils highways fleet including Wagons, gritters etc has cost £50,999.00.

Building Signage and rebranding Main Council Offices (County & District Offices) including Register Offices and key libraries that have been earmarked as new Customer Connect buildings has cost £35,569.95

Council owned and operated car parks signage rebranding cost the council £12,899.34

Uniforms legally required for enforcement including traffic wardens cost the council £66,460.29

Promotional banners, Resident door drop flyers ad leaflets, leader videos and additional branding cost the council in its first few weeks £40,000.00

£5,259.00 was spent on new Westmorland and Furness Council branded Parking Discs for on street parking.

The new council also spent £700 on new (Freepost) Pre-paid envelopes.

 Locally in Penrith the council also spent £4,000.00 on rebranding at the councils Skirsgill depot and £1,500.00 on new branding at Penrith Leisure Centre.

Westmorland and Furness Council also paid £4,000 for design agency support for a new logo and associated ‘final’ design work to create the councils new branding.

The rebranding has so far cost Westmorland and Furness Council £295,000 with at least another £80,000 still expected to be spent on further rebranding in its next phase.

A spokesperson for the council said “the majority of work was carried out by the councils internal sign shop where sub-contractors were used to meet safe and legal deadlines, we used local suppliers first and foremost.”

“A total budget of £375k was allocated for rebranding, including: buildings, signage, vehicles, uniforms, online changes to social media accounts, merchandise etc.”

“To date there still remains approximately £80k unspent that is still to be allocated/spent as part of phase 3”

What do you think was the spending of hundreds of thousands on the rebrand good value for public money?