CITC To Undergo Rebranding For May’s Local Elections

NOT CONTENT with re-inventing themselves as the Canvey Island Independent Party to hoodwink islanders into thinking they were voting for something new, failed ex-Labour councillors, who are now comfortably installed in Canvey Island’s Town Council, have decided to refresh that establishment’s failed image by completely overhauling its rarely used Website.

The image conscious councillors passed a resolution to employ local firm, Impact Media Design (based in Charfleets Farm Way) to conduct the work - at a meeting of the Canvey Island Town Council on 19th July this year.

As in the case of numerous other meetings held by CITC, the 19th July Minutes were never published on its existing Website.

CITC 010 19 July 2010

As the minutes show, Impact Media will be conducting the work for £581.63 (including VAT) and a monthly maintenance fee of £35.

The Town Council’s current Website was provided by a firm in Bishops Stortford (5BelowZero) whose annual maintenance charges increased from £102 in 2008/09 to £823 by January this year.

It seems that the CITC will save islanders money by finally choosing to go local; but will they use the site any differently (i.e. not use it) to the one they have now?

It seems that keeping residents informed of forthcoming meetings and their outcomes is not high on the Town Council’s agenda. Since Julie Abel’s departure the council has appeared unwilling to provide residents with the information to which they are entitled – and are paying – to receive. And now, it appears that the Website’s imminent renewal is being used as an excuse for failing to keep the current site up-to-date.

Residents will be interested to know if the new Website will ensure public access to all that published material on the present site – and all the missing material that the Town Council has kept in-house. And they will also be interested to discover if the council will make full use of the new facilities.

The omens are not good, however. Asked to provide details of the TC’s Twitter feed, so that it might be incorporated into the Canvey Beat’s STOP PRESS feature, the Town Clerk replied:-

‘We are hoping to have our website up and running for the new year and there is the option of having twitter on the new site, however, the Council have not had the opportunity to decide whether this is a function that they wish to use.’