The South Wales Evening Post has hit back at Swansea council leader Lawrence Bailey over his claims that the newspaper has been publishing “bizarre” stories about the authority.

In a statement published in the Evening Post, Councillor Bailey claimed the paper’s reporting of the Improvement and Development Agency review of the City and County council contained “lurid headlines, mis-quotes and slanted articles”.

He also said the outcome of the review had never been kept secret, as the paper claimed, saying something “which is being presented to 12,500 staff working for the authority can hardly be described as confidential”.

However, the Evening Post has hit back at the councillor’s accusations.

It said: “Councillor Bailey calls some of the stories bizarre. We are unsure why, they accurately reflect a damning report on a council which he himself publicly admitted has lost its way.

“We applaud his decision to implement the review but reject his allegations of lurid headlines, misquotes and slanted articles. We contend that our stories were balanced and accurate.

“Councillor Bailey issued a statement about the report several days before it was presented to council. He did not provide a copy of the report but the Post was leaked an executive summary.

“He says the report was never secret. If that is so, then perhaps the council would provide us with a copy.”

The paper also rejected the councillor’s claims that the essence of the report showed a well performing council and that the paper had failed to report the good work that the council has done, preferring to “induldge in shock-horror-scandal journalism”.

It said: “He is welcome to visit our library at any time to see how often we have reported on these projects and the prominence we have given them.

“We always want to report news that is good for Swansea but we would be misleading our readers if we did not tell of the problems as well.”

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