Doesn't fit the bill (From Bucks Free Press)

Doesn't fit the bill

10:42am Friday 29th January 2010

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

IT takes a lot to shock our battle-hardened Chief Reporter Oliver Evans.

But shocked he truly was at a meeting last week when a senior Tory claimed the public likes the county council’s magazine better than local newspapers.

In fact, Oliver was so gobsmacked that the colour visibly drained from his face and councillors couldn’t resist a chuckle as they noticed how stunned he was by the statement.

The claim came from the council’s deputy leader, the otherwise remarkably sensible Bill Chapple OBE, who was defending the Buckinghamshire Times magazine which is funded by us taxpayers at a rate of £114,000 per year.

When pressed about the mag by a committee probing spending cuts, Big Bill said: “They like it better than the local paper.” How very dare he! Could he have possibly been comparing a council newsletter to the Midweek or the Bucks Free Press?

I’m not surprised our man Oliver was so shocked because the Bucks Free Press has recently carried loads of letters from its readers complaining about the Buckinghamshire Times.

In particular, people had a massive gripe at the fact the council newsletter was delivered to their homes during the height of the snowfall with the front page headline of ‘TRUE GRIT – Buckinghamshire gets ready for winter’.

This was hugely ironic because although the magazine deliverers got through to residential homes in hilly side streets, the gritters clearly didn’t. The roads and pavements were covered with snow and ice, while the bins (district council responsibility) were overflowing because the refuse collectors couldn’t get through either.

No, Buckinghamshire was not prepared for the winter, according to very many of our correspondents who were livid at the council for effectively rubbing our noses in it.

One reader was so furious he even sent me in a picture of himself in his snowed-in street, in Deangarden Rise, High Wycombe, holding up the Bucks Times.

Actually, I do have some sympathy with the editors of the newsletter. Most publications fall foul of an unfortunate bit of timing like this. But the difference is most publications don’t cost the public £114,000 per year. If you are unhappy with your 35p Midweek, then you don’t buy it the following week. But you don’t have the same option with the Bucks Times – you effectively have to pay for it whether you like it or not. Bill later told me 45 per cent of the public say they enjoy the Bucks Times.

But in these days of very effective local authority websites, I reckon I find such glossy pro-council magazines incomprehensible.

I am glad to hear the Bucks Times is being merged with other council publications to save cash, but methinks they should do away with them altogether.

At best, a photocopied A4 information flyer through the doors would suffice.

But hey, maybe Bill Chapple’s right and that readers do like the Bucks Times better than they like my newspapers.

Because, after all, ‘True Grit’ was far funnier than anything I have ever written in this column.

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)