Well, just continuing the clear out of all of the correspondence that I have had over the past year or so... Get the truth out there so to speak... And I came across this gem in the Wales Outdoors archives...
A few long years ago I noticed a new campaign, a new website, a new promotional opportunity, or so I thought... The campaign was/is called 'Wales In Style' and so I thought I'd like to get involved. I contacted the operator and asked if I could be included in the web based campaign... No was the answer as it was by recommendation to and then only by invite from the Director of Wales In Style. Hmmm... I complained to Wales In Style and to VisitWales to no effect.
At the start of this year I remembered this complaint and had a look at the website, Wales In Style, and to my dismay it was a dead site that had never fulfilled its potential, with whole areas of it empty of information and just a few rss feeds making it look as though it was still relevant...
Blog not updated since September 2010, not so long after Wales In Style received it's final grant payment of £109,500...
So I got to thinking who had benefitted from the deal, the promotion of 'quality' weekend breaks that supposedly made use of the best activity providers, the best accommodation, the best restaraunts...
But first, who says who is the best? I know that the only South Wales activity provider promoted by Wales In Style are far from the best and that the others listed are the usual suspects of 'Preferred by VisitWales', some invisible company that I am sure must exist within the dusty corridors of Welsh Tourism. And I am sure accommodation and catering providers will have the same feeling, believing that they have yet again been cut out of the loop in favour of the same old, same old... . There is something wrong here - I wonder if perhaps that old friend 'nepotism' crept in here... that someone was getting freebies, having their palm greased, so to speak...
What an amazing list of activities for the well healed to peruse... And Preseli Venture get in there three times :)
But that is not the point I intend to make with this post as I think I have clearly demonstrated on many occasions the sickness that lies in the belly of the beast that is VisitWales...
And so back to who benefited... Not those listed I am sure as the website never did that well. Not the funders of the site, surely, as they are public servants... So, the Directors of Wales In Style perhaps? Well, yes, to the tune of about £240,000... For THIS! Man, I'm in the wrong job. But at least I sleep at night...
So I asked a few questions that I thought it might be useful to have the answers to, and these were directed by Welsh Government officials to a freedom of information request... And the request was denied - something about the questions under the freedom of information request being too time consuming and so too costly and so not something that the Welsh Assembly Government would agree to providing answers to...
And so government, those that govern, refuse to answer a couple of questions regarding the absurd waste of Welsh Tourism Budget to a total of £240,000!
The idiots at VisitWales and the Welsh Assembly gave £240,000 to private individuals to build a website catering for the well off and failed to monitor its progress, worth or longevity... I regard the staff involved in this waste of public money as criminals and they ought to be treated as such. This is the reason our economy isn't working, why our society is not functioning. This is the reason for revolt across the globe and for the arraignment and imprisonment of similar criminals in Iceland.
Please, lets stop this madness and remove access to power and money from the bureaucrats and politicians, from the quango men and men in suits.
Comments