Peterborough City Council and Cambridgeshire County Council used the services of a Conservative councillor to help spend £70,000 on radio campaigns during Covid.
Council bosses at Peterborough City Council said they turned to CAP Radio Production & Media Buying Services – owned by Cllr Wayne Fitzgerald – “which we understood could gain cheaper advertising rates than the council was able to because of its experience and contacts in the industry.
“These radio adverts were also used across the whole of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, as at that point there was one public health team covering the whole county”.
The disclosures by the city council follow a series of Freedom of Information requests by CambsNews which revealed that since 2016 Peterborough Community Radio Station Ltd, also owned by Cllr Fitzgerald, enjoys rent and rate free occupation of city council owned premises at Orton Malbourne.
Herlington Centre, Peterborough
Friday 04 July 2025.
Picture by Terry Harris.
Adrian Chapman, executive director for place and economy, said: “Very rarely does the council pay for external advertising such as on the radio as this is costly. We instead opt for cost-free ways to share messages including on social media and through the media.
“During Covid there was an unprecedented need to share urgent messages quickly and as widely as possible to limit the spread of the virus. This included messages around not socialising with others, protecting those who were shielding and encouraging take-up of rapid testing and the vaccine.
“This advertising and promotion was paid for using additional Government grants awarded to us to support with protecting the public and raising awareness of the need to follow national guidance to limit the spread of the virus.”
Mr Chapman added: “Radio advertising was one way we shared messages with the public, particularly at times when rates in the city were amongst the highest in the country.
“This was booked via Cap Media, which we understood could gain cheaper advertising rates than the council was able to because of its experience and contacts in the industry. These radio adverts were also used across the whole of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, as at that point there was one public health team covering the whole county.”
He said: “The council has also used Cap Media to book radio advertising on two other occasions, to promote support for people to quit smoking in January of this year and details of the new voter registration rules in 2023.
“Both of these campaigns were funded using additional government grants and did not come from the council’s core budget.”
A city council spokesman commented: “Just to add, of the £71,353 we have spent, the vast majority of this was spent in 2020 and 2021 £68,653. The remainder, £2,700, was spent on a smoking cessation campaign in January 2025 and a campaign around voter ID changes in 2023.”
Cap Media was incorporated in 2010 and operates from Cllr Fitzgerald’s home address. He is shown on Companies House as being the majority shareholder (75 per cent or more of shares) but since 2017 his wife replaced him as director.
According to company directories, it has no employees.
CambsNews has submitted further FOI requests inviting the council to clarify issues regarding procurement and the rationale for using CAP instead of direct bookings or alternative suppliers or going direct to radio stations for which a precedent had been long established.
Cllr Fitzgerald has failed to respond to CambsNews previously when we invited his response to his radio station enjoying a prolonged rent and rate free occupancy of council owned premises at the Herlington Centre.
However, he did speak to the Local Democracy Service and told them that he “lies awake at night” thinking about how to pay the station’s bills.
“It is challenging to pay all the bills and bills have got to be paid. “So, we are allowed to sell advertising, raise sponsorships and donations whether that be in cash or in kind.”
“We are a not-for-profit community group and there are many of them in the city that receive free rent for example. The rent situation here, we took on this building in a very dilapidated state.
“We’ve refurbished, we’ve created this, and we’ve come to an area that was thought to be very much deprived.
Herlington Centre, Peterborough
Friday 04 July 2025.
Picture by Terry Harris.
He added: “People say well you are not a charity or not a CIC [community interest company]. We don’t need to be. We are, by our stated memorandum and articles of association, a not-for-profit company. By law and by statute, we cannot make a profit, or anything we do make has to go back into the project.”
CambsNews has invited Peterborough City Council to provide a detailed breakdown of how the £70,000 on Covid related advertising was spent, and projected audience figures for its campaign and which radio stations benefited from the advertising spend.
We have also asked for clarification of whether the £70,000 paid to Cllr Fitzgerlad’s Cap Media included a margin for his company, and if invoices were provided from the radio companies to show the savings and demonstrate what airtime was provided and what VAT was applicable in the payments.
