COUNCILLORS have agreed to continue working with Visit Somerset to promote Wellington as a tourism destination – although a former mayor has labelled it a “complete waste of money.”

Members of Wellington Town Council’s economic development committee agreed on June 10 to carry on working in partnership with Visit Somerset at a cost of £5,500 for the coming year.

It means that more information about things to do, places to stay, eat and visit in Wellington will be included on the Visit Somerset’s website and it is hoped that that will attract more visitors to the town.

But it has been heavily criticised by former mayor, Cllr Janet Lloyd, who reeled off a list of criticisms about the website to councillors and said that continuing to work with Visit Somerset for a second year was a waste of money.

Cllr Janet Lloyd said: “I was totally against this last year and I’m totally against it even more this year.

“I think it is a complete waste of money. I think we’ll be throwing away good money after bad if we carry on with this.”

The current mayor, Cllr Mark Lithgow, agreed that he too was not overly impressed with what he had seen so far from Visit Somerset.

“At first I started out by thinking this would be a really good way of promoting Wellington,” he said. “But I have become disillusioned with Visit Somerset. I haven’t seen any improvement on the website over the past 12 months – it’s not fit for purpose.”

Cllr John Thorne said: “I’m a supporter of being involved in Visit Somerset although it hasn’t gone as well as we would have liked.

“We have started on the journey with this and made a few steps, but it will take time.

“We aren’t going to turn Wellington into a destination town with people coming from all over the place.

“But I have confidence we will get there with this although we need to review it.”

Committee chairman Cllr Keith Wheatley said that the council had had a “vigorous session” with Giles Adams, of Visit Somerset, about how things can be improved.

“We don’t have a tourist information facility in the town and Visit Somerset is attempting to fill the gap,” he said. “We’ve made a decent start, but there are holes in it and I think we should carry on and resolve those problems.”

Cllr Steve Mercer said: “Wellington is not a place where people come and stay. Wellington has got a great community, but we aren’t going to be a major tourism centre.

“But I think what the chairman has said is an honest assessment. This is a work in progress.”

Councillors voted 5-2 in favour of supporting the Visit Somerset with Cllrs Mark Lithgow and Janet Lloyd voting against.

The council’s chief executive, Dave Farrow, said: “In discussions with Visit Somerset, a programme has been developed to build on last year’s work and introduce greater rigour into the monitoring and quality assurance of content and outputs.”