Central Bedfordshire Council's '£500,000' rebrand

Central Bedfordshire Council has spent £533,443 on rebranding since becoming a unitary authority in April 2009.

A Freedom of Information request made by the BBC revealed it spent the money on items such as a logo and signage.

The new authority replaced Mid Bedfordshire and South Bedfordshire district councils and the county council.

The council said its logo "has been created with the creation of the council and has never been rebranded".

The Conservative council tops a list of newly-formed English unitary authorities ranked by the amount they have spent on branding.

Wiltshire Council was second on the list, with spending totalling £475,000.

Northumberland was bottom, with spending of £5,776.45.

In a statement Central Bedfordshire Council said: "We are a new unitary authority, which did not exist before 1 April 2009.

"The council's logo has been created with the creation of the council and has never been 'rebranded'."

Bedford Borough, which replaced the old Bedfordshire County Council as well as Bedford Borough Council, came eighth on the list, spending a total of £19,000.

In a statement, the hung council which has a Liberal Democrat majority said: "We are a continuing authority that took on the functions previously undertaken by Bedfordshire County Council from 1 April 2009. Therefore no re-branding took place of the council's logo.

"There were some minimal costs involved in providing new highway boundary signs for a sum of £11,000 and external and internal signage for our main administrative centre amounting to less than £8,000. None of the above costs were paid to design agencies."