Greenwich Council has been told to rethink plans to spend £1.3m on keeping its town hall magazine running for another four years.

Bosses at the council approved new printing and distributing contracts for the Greenwich Info earlier this month.

The fortnightly publication is delivered to the majority of households in the borough, but new contracts totalling £1.3m to keep it running were ‘called-in’ by the opposition.

Call-ins are rare town hall moves that have decisions brought back for further scrutiny.

Dull as ditchwater​

Matt Hartley, the leader of Greenwich Conservatives, said Greenwich Info was an outdated way of getting in touch with residents – and a waste of taxpayers’ money.

“It’s just dull”, Cllr Hartley said at a special scrutiny meeting last night, “The main reason for this call in is that far from being an effective means of communication, it is as dull as ditchwater. Not my words, the words of former leader cllr Hyland.

“This is a waste of resources, it will have an adverse impact on media outlets and it is ineffective and inefficient at communicating the right information to the right people.”

MORE - Greenwich Council poised to agree new £1.3m Greenwich Info contracts

The Tory leader said claims the authority was offsetting its spending with advertising cash were debatable as council departments were placing ads – meaning it was moving taxpayers’ money “from one pot to another” and calling it revenue.

“This is a very expensive sledgehammer to crack a very small nut in communication terms”, Cllr Hartley said, “It is distributed in a very un-targeted way at the cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds to the tax payer.”

Costs

It’s estimated that distribution will cost £873,600 over four years, with printing set to rack up a £420k bill.

That, according to the council, works out at roughly a penny per household to print.

Cllr Hartley said “true costs” are much higher when net spend is factored in – estimating that £305k could be saved a year by scrapping it.

The Info is used to advertise choice base lettings, statutory notices and jobs to residents – which council boss Katrina Delaney said had never been needed more.

Greenwich CouncilGreenwich Council

Mrs Delaney defended claims the magazine competed for advertising with local papers such as News Shopper or Greenwich Mercury, saying the Info attracted different markets.

She said: “The need to communicate with residents has never been stronger.

“We can print it so long as it is not considered a newspaper – by necessity it has to be very dry as it is purely factual information that can be published.

“There is no other paper that is widely available. It is important there is borough wide access to jobs and housing and statutory notices.”

Rethink

However, the panel agreed there may be a more cost effective method to target residents who want the Info – admitting that they themselves had not been getting a copy.

Cllr Ivis Williams said: “I appreciate what you said about the amount of money injected internally given the squeeze on the voluntary sector – it does raise questions about us funding this paper.

“In terms of this reaching residents – I guarantee you I have never seen a Greenwich Info come through my door.”

The panel voted to send the contracts decisions back for re-examination on how the money could be better spent to target residents who need information.

Greenwich Council hit the headlines in 2016 after its newspaper at the time – Greenwich Time – was closed following a crackdown on “town hall pravadas”.