THE GREAT PRESS RELEASE
In response to the many articles that have appeared in several newspapers over the last week, we have decided not to talk directly to the press due to fact that we have been misreported in the past. Most of the articles that have been printed have been misleading and some have been completely untrue.
For the record, Business Perthshire and Perthshire Business were both set up at the end of the first quarter 2005. They are independently operated and neither are owned by the person named in the newspapers.
The websites were not set up because of a failure to win council G8 tenders but as a result of the lack of support by both the chamber and the council for local businesses.
It came to light after the G8 tenders, that the council have not awarded contracts to companies within the Perthshire area for many years and that the Perthshire Chamber of Commerce were well aware of this and yet did nothing to address it and support their members.
At a meeting with the council after the tender decision, it became apparent that their representatives had little understanding of modern desktop publishing and appeared to have no interest in using local companies.
At a similar meeting with the Chamber, they showed a complete lack of interest in the fact that local businesses were repeatedly losing out on lucrative contracts that would benefit the area economically.
Not only do companies in Perthshire lose out, but it would appear that new companies, even proven successful businesses seem to be prevented from relocating to Perth which would provide local jobs and help the local economy.
The council claimed that the talent wasn’t here in Perthshire for their contracts and yet we researched the companies approached and know all would have been more than capable of producing the quality of work acceptable by council standards.
The chamber instead of offering support, allowed several of their members to criticise us in the media and other publications claiming that our work was not up to standard. None of them have ever seen any of our work.
We therefore decided to use the websites to demonstrate what we were capable of and highlighted issues that we felt needed addressing.
The involvement of MP Peter Wishart who was responsible for the temporary removal of Business Perthshire from the internet, has raised serious concerns namely web censorship which inevitably will become a national issue when he raises it in the house of Commons. On their own website, the SNP claims they support freedom of speech!
Our ISP has failed to provide us with an adequate reason as to why the site was removed from their servers but it would appear that Mr Wishart has been less than truthful with them. Contrary to what he claimed we have not had any contact with this man. No other ISP contacted both UK or overseas has refused to host Business Perthshire. We have sent correspondence to the SNP head office requesting an apology and compensation for our hosting fees. No response to date.
The council and the Chamber have consistently demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of how to deal with new businesses and persistently failed to recognise new skills and talent that could benefit the area.
The fact is that people all over the world now are finding Business Perthshire and Perthshire Business by typing common search phrases associated with Perthshire into the major search engines. The council and the chamber completely underestimated our skills and the power of the internet. Any shrewd businessman would see how important this is and what it could do for their business.
