An appeal
As we enter our Christmas break, we wanted to tell the story of, well a story. A story that would not have seen the light of day in all its murky glory without Somerset Confidential®.
Dear readers
Today we are asking you if you can help us. We are a small news organisation that works hard to punch above its weight.
Small we may be, but there are important stories that you only know about because of the work of our journalists.
More on that in a moment.
With each news release we always appeal to you, our readers, for your support. With Christmas coming, though, we wanted to give a practical example of the sort of reporting that we have been able to bring to Somerset. Breaking a story the extent of which would not have been properly understood without Somerset Confidential®.
The Life Factory and Somerset Confidential®
It is the sad story of the collapse of the Life Factory project. Our first major piece was about the conflict of interest between the chair of the Glastonbury Town Deal Board and her husband, who was a director of the Red Brick Building and actively leading the Life Factory project.
Pretty much everyone had noted that the conflict of interest was declared, so end of story. Right?
Wrong! By reviewing all of the board minutes and tracking the course of the Life Factory project, we realised that despite the conflict being declared, it was never acted on. The Chair of the board remained in the room for all discussions of the Life Factory project and on several occasions made unsolicited encouraging remarks about the project.
We were the only news organisation to research and report on this. Shortly after our article was published the Chair of the Glastonbury Town Deal Board resigned.
Whilst it was widely reported that Somerset Council had ordered a report into the Life Factory project to find out what had gone wrong, no-one seemed to realise the extent of Somerset Council’s own culpability.
Armed with a Freedom of Information request and a collection of board minutes we started the painstaking process of putting the pieces of the jigsaw together. As a result we were able to show that:
Somerset Council councillors and officers had attended board meetings of the Glastonbury Town Deal Board,
had been told during those meetings that there were either serious doubts about the progress of the project, or that basic financial controls were not in place.
Yet despite having that knowledge made substantial payments to the project a few days after the board meeting.
The research was not carried out anywhere else and those findings were only published by Somerset Confidential®.
Later we were the only news organisation to track the London Gazette and hence were the first to report that Beckery Construction Company had started proceedings to go into liquidation. Leaving over £600,000 in liabilities to local companies and almost no assets to pay them with.
Other news organisations only published the story around a week after we did. Almost as if nobody had noticed until we published the facts.
As the full depth of debacle at the Life Factory unfolded, Somerset Council produced a “Lessons Learned report”. It should have been available for the Extraordinary Audit Committee on 9 December when there were 2 public questions about it. It was released to councillors but not to the public.
Although Somerset Council said they would publish it, they hadn’t produced it for the relevant Audit Committee so we took the decision to publish the report, which we had obtained a full copy of, and put it in the public domain.
As a result Somerset Council did indeed publish the report in full for the public. But by then because we placed it in the public domain, it didn’t really matter if they did or they did not.
Because we had obtained a copy of the report, we were able to publish the fact that two town deal projects had been cancelled, and that Somerset Council were demanding their money back from the Life Factory project.
Again, we were able to bring that story out into the open before any other news organisation realised there was a story.
And because we have expertise among our pool of journalists in financial journalism, we were the only organisation to realise that if Somerset Council asked for their money back, it would effectively bankrupt the Red Brick Building, which had managed the Life Factory project.
Finally the Red Brick Building recently released their own board statement to us as we reported just yesterday. Obviously, our reporting of the issues must at times have been tough reading for them. So it was touching to receive a note with the press release that thanked us for our: “balanced reporting on this sad situation”.
And that’s important too. That in rooting out these stories and bringing them to you, we always endeavour to do so in a way that is measured and balanced. Do we always get it right. No, I’m sure we don’t - but then who does? But the point is we try hard and often receive compliments for our efforts.
In a nutshell, most of the critical reporting throughout the past year on the Life Factory story has been led by Somerset Confidential®. Without our reporting, most of the important details would not have come to light. And those details that were published elsewhere were only published some time after we brought them to public attention.
We need your help
Not all of our work is as eye-catching as the Life Factory story. But it is an example of what we can do. And there are plenty of other stories which either would not have seen the light of day or where the important details would have been missed, without the contribution of Somerset Confidential®.
Yes, we tend not to cover happy smiley stories. But there are lots of other outlets where you can find that. No, we don’t publish uninterrogated press releases from public bodies or corporates, but again, there are lots of others that do that for a living.
That’s not what we do. But to do more of what we do, we need more of your support.
We would love it if more of you would become paying subscribers. We haven’t increased our annual subscription for Somerset Confidential® since we launched.
It’s still £30, one of the least expensive news subscriptions you can buy. And that is not a coincidence. Because we want to make the news as accessible as we can. But we have to balance that against the need to pay our journalists and pay our bills.
It is a tough balancing act but we hope that what we are charging is fair and maximises the affordability for all of our readers and potential readers across Somerset.
We offer our paying subscribers an extra 48 stories each year - exclusive to them. In the event this year, we have delivered 60. In addition our paying subscribers can access our complete back catalogue and comment on any of our material.
But most importantly, our only source of income is from those paying subscribers. If you feel able to support us and help us do more in 2026, you can subscribe here:
And whether you do or you don’t, thank you for reading our material, we hope you all have a very Happy Christmas, a peaceful holiday season and wish you the very best for 2026.
Andrew Lee - Editor
If you’d like to gift a subscription to a friend or colleague for Christmas, there is still time and you can do that right here:
Excellent work - without you this scandal would not have come to light. Local traders left with unpaid invoices, public money lost with nothing gained - a terrible state of affairs. Scrutiny by the media is increasingly scarce these days with the demise of local newspapers. Top work.
Many congratulations, Andrew!