A small town in Wales has paid £150,000 (€180,000) to be in the new season of BBC television drama, Hinterland, and cut the same sum of money from its CCTV budget.
Hinterland is a noir crime drama set in Aberstwyth in Wales which highlights the underbelly of crime in the small town.
Council leaders agreed to the payment and the filming of the series, which will be shown on BBC Four and S4C, in hopes that it will bring in visitors and tourism.
The first season of the show was also filmed in Aberstwyth and brought in roughly 500,000 viewers.
The council said the first series of the show was thought to have generated £1million for Aberystwyt and funded the underwriting of the series so filming could continue while they also make applications for European grants.
The decision, however, has received much criticism as it is believed to be a waste of tax-payers money.
Andy Silvester, from the TaxPayers’ Alliance, told the Metro, ‘Both the BBC and S4C already receive huge taxpayer subsidies, so council tax residents in Ceredigion will now be hit doubly hard. When public finances are so stretched it’s totally inappropriate for the council to be funding TV shows.
‘They need to reconsider their position immediately.’
The town has also decided to close two libraries, cut £44,000 of funding for a swimming pool and make £80,000 worth of cuts in road gritting to save money.
