BACKGROUND
On 21st May, 2025 Paula Basnett was narrowly elected as leader of the Labour Party Group on Wirral Borough Council. This election was held against a background of financial incompetence and failure by the Council to progress projects or to provide the ratepayers of Wirral with anything remotely like value for money.
Paula Basnett’s subsequent election as Council leader was supported by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat groups presumably on the premise that, in the derelict landscape of Wirral Borough Council, any Councillor who could demonstrate potential for competence should be appointed leader.
On election, Councillor Basnett promised to “lead a council that listens, delivers, and is accountable to the people that we serve” and, in fairness to her, she seems to have implemented some positive changes.
She commissioned an independent report on the regeneration fiasco and handled the controversy over the Kings Gap Hotel competently. She speaks well and convincingly by comparison with what went before her and there is a sense of hope, in the Council chamber at least, that Wirral may be on a better path.
However over the last six months an interested party (who are all council tax payers) has been conducting an in depth investigation into her background and historic conduct and are sorry to report their conclusion is that, despite the convincing rhetoric, Mrs. Basnett is NOT going to lead the Wirral into a bright new future.
There are three components to the following report.
1) An examination of her record of leadership and probity at Wirral Chamber of Commerce.
2) The historic and potentially fraudulent interactions between Wirral Borough Council and Wirral Chamber of Commerce, including crossover of personnel.
3) Her establishment of private limited Companies (owned by herself and other members of her family) trading in premises that were refurbished using public funds and where the leases were accessed through the relationship between the Chamber and the Council.
1) Wirral Chamber of Commerce
Mrs Basnett’s record at the Chamber was characterised by nepotism and cronyism with a considerable number of family members and friends being rewarded with jobs completely unrelated to their skillsets. Her sister, mother and son have all reportedly worked for the Chamber as have a number of her close friends.
Many of these were hired despite having no business background or any obvious capabilities to do the job.
As an example, consider that the current Chair of the Chamber is Warren Ward. What are his business credentials to fulfil this key role?
He was a Labour councillor for two years until he unexpectedly resigned and he is currently a serving police officer. There is no evidence we have been able to find of him running a business or his having even worked in a business.
Although Mrs Basnett stood down as a Director and Chair of the Chamber when she became Council Leader, the current board are all her appointees and we believe she still exercises effective control over the Chamber of Commerce via these acolytes.
In another example, WEB Enterprises is a “wellness charity” run from a Council-owned building by Paula Basnett’s mother and it has received significant sums from both Wirral Borough Council and Liverpool City Region over the years.
As far as can be seen, this family interest has never been declared to any Council committee. Paula’s sister, Sharon Stanton, is also a trustee of the charity.
In addition to the allegations of nepotism, there are also allegations of cronyism and these have been ongoing for more than a decade.
In 2014, call centre magnate, Asif Hamid – recently revealed as a criminal and con-artist – was handed £1 million by the Local Enterprise Partnership – a board on which he sat and whose Managing Director at the time was Mark Basnett, Paula’s husband. At the time Hamid denied anything untoward – pointing out that local councils have the final say in who gets the grants.
However Asif Hamid at that time was also Chair of Wirral Chamber of Commerce and Paula Basnett was its Chief Executive. So effectively, it was Hamid’s friends and cronies at Wirral Council who made the decision to award the million pound grant to his Company.
See below for UK National broadsheet newspaper The Times’ 29th March 2026 article revealing Paula Basnett associate Asif Hamid’s broad gamut of criminal activities over a period of many decades. Some of Hamid’s highly questionable activity coincided with his chairmanship of the Wirral Chamber of Commerce between 2017 and 2023. The Wirral public need to know whether Wirral Council leader Paula Basnett – as Chamber of Commerce CEO – was aware of this.
2) Interactions Between WBC and WCC.
Wirral Council commissions Wirral Chamber of Commerce to deliver a universal business Support Service to provide business advice, events, networking, and other support services aimed at helping businesses start, grow, and thrive using annual grant money.
An FOI request regarding how the annual grant of £438,050 was apportioned to businesses across Wirral between April 2024 and April 2025 the Council was responded to as follows.
“This service is not a grant scheme for onward distribution to businesses, but rather a commissioned programme that is currently funded by UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
The funding is not distributed directly to businesses. Instead, it is used to deliver a universal support service. Therefore, there is no breakdown of direct financial apportionment to individual businesses, as the funding is not allocated in that manner.”
They were then asked to provide total amounts, business names and addresses, dates, and the name of the Wirral Chamber official apportioning the money, however they responded:
“Since the funding is not distributed as grants or direct financial support to businesses, no such records exist of individual payments, business names, or officials apportioning funds. The Chamber delivers services under commissioned agreement, and any engagement with businesses is in the form of support activities rather than financial transactions.”
So, to paraphrase, there is absolutely no accountability whatever in terms of how this public money is spent. It is merely handed to the directors of the Chamber year after year to spend on general support services without any scrutiny or any audit trail.
Providing business support to its members is the normal activity of a Chamber of Commerce and what its members already pay them for and it is these unaccountable activities that are effectively being funded by the council.
There seems to be no data available or collected on what help Wirral businesses actually receive.
Private Limited Companies Benefiting From Refurbished Premises
In addition to sitting on the board of a number of Community Interest Companies spun off from the Council and the Chamber, Mrs. Basnett and her family have financial interests in a series of private limited companies which make use of refurbished Council premises.
In November 2020. Paula Basnett and her sister, Sharon Stanton, established a private limited Company, Pausha Ltd.
Sharon subsequently resigned as a director in September 2021 however the Company shareholding is still in the name of Paula Basnett and other members of her family.
In addition to a licensed premises in Oxton, Pausha Ltd leases a wine bar in the refurbished Woodside Ferry Terminal which is currently under further refurbishment using public funds.
Paula Basnett was on the Town Deal Board since 2021 and grant funds of in excess of a million pounds were used to refurbish Egerton House creating an “events” area on the top floor.
This building was then sold by the Council to the Chamber of Commerce for not much more than the cost of the refurbishment and a private limited Company, Jaidan Events Ltd runs a variety of schemes from the premises.
Jaidan Events is owned by Sharon Stanton and her husband.
Jaidan Events Ltd also operates from another refurbished building “The Lauries” in Claughton Road. This is another Council owned property’ notionally refurbished to meet community needs that seems to have come under Mrs Basnett’s effective control.
The members of Wirral Borough Council who elected Paula Basnett as Council leader cannot argue that when they elected her they did so unaware of the allegations against her because in early 2024 Sean Martin, Chair of the New Brighton Coastal Community Team, sent the following letter to all 66 councillors.
I wrote to you all in November regarding Wirral Chamber of Commerce and the Business Support Grant and the fact that nobody seemed to be aware of the availability of this Free Business Support. I say Free Business Support but of course it is not free as it is paid for with Taxpayers Money. In 2022 they received £396,000 to provide these services and in 2023 they received a further £396,000. Not once during these 2 years did Wirral Council or Wirral Chamber advertise the availability of this support on their social media channels. Since I highlighted this Chamber are advertising it every few days on their twitter feed and Wirral Council have posted it on their Facebook Page and Twitter Feed. Our own Councillors in New Brighton even took the trouble to
invite Chamber down to New Brighton to cold call local businesses and reported it on their Facebook page. And low and behold the Liverpool Echo and the Wirral Globe have now joined in publishing the availability of this support and highlighting a good news story of a local business that apparently has thrived as a result of the support they have received. Isn’t it a shame that it took a community group highlighting this for any effort to be made to promote the service.
My own experience of looking for support through this service is not as positive. On October 18th 2023 I emailed the Chamber at the email address provided asking what support my business Liberty Antiques could receive. Three months later I have still not had a reply. A couple of weeks later myself and two of my colleagues in the New Brighton Coastal Community Team met two Wirral Chamber staff members to discuss what help our local independent businesses could benefit from and to ask could Chamber support us in our campaign to secure an Events Policy for New Brighton. This was something tangible we have been looking for as our established businesses suffer from out of town events rocking up every Bank holiday weekend and taking the money from our tills on what should be our busiest weekends. Despite a promise for them to get back to us promptly we have heard nothing. So that’s over 2 months ago and still no follow up from Chamber.
I had been chasing the performance Data provided by Chamber for this contract but twice I was refused with WBC stating that it was commercially sensitive information. Surprisingly just before Christmas it was sent to me and it showed that there are 10 different performance criteria with a set target for each. And Lo and Behold Wirral Chamber had exceeded expectations in each one!! I have attached this chart for your attention. I would love more detailed information but I doubt that I will get it and I would love to know if these figures can be substantiated or are they simply numbers provided by Chamber. For example, I wonder if the businesses cold called by Chamber in New Brighton are recorded as businesses helped even though they did not receive any support. Is my business down as a business helped even though they have not even replied to my email? The business support contract has now been extended for another 2 years and Chamber will receive £438,050 for 2024 and a further £438,050 for 2025. Surely more scrutiny is needed to ensure these vast sums of money are returning good value for taxpayers money?
I also spoke about what looks like an incestuous relationship between Wirral Council and Wirral Chamber with staff leaving Chamber to take up positions in Council and them making decisions that benefit Chamber. Some would say that the fact that Paula Basnett is now a councillor adds fuel to that. As the companies and CIC’s she owns or represent get
so much revenue from Wirral Council its probably not a good look.
The awarding of this contract to Wirral Chamber is a good case in point. Alan Evans was director of Regeneration and Place in Wirral Council until October 2022. According to his Linkedin Profile he was also a Non Executive Board Member of Wirral Chamber of Commerce. He had been in that position from January 2015 until he resigned in October 2021. Coincidentally also in October 2021 he put out the tender for the Business Support Contract. There were 3 tenders received, obviously one was from Wirral Chamber. On the 1st December 2021 Alan Evans signed off an Officer Decision Form awarding the contract to Wirral Chamber. Ironically he based his decision on a report by Ben Lavell, Economic Development Lead at Wirral Council who also joined WBC from Wirral Chamber. I’m not making any accusations but let’s be honest it’s not a good look. As you will probably know there are several CIC’s and private companies run by the chair of Wirral Chamber Councillor Paula Basnett and / or Wirral Chamber and all seem to benefit from Wirral Council. I wrote to you regarding Egerton House CIC. As I mentioned then there are 2 directors of Egerton House CIC. They are Paula Basnett and Wirral Chamber and they are due to receive a further £1,241.530 this year from Wirral Council to repurpose the ground floor of the building as part of the Birkenhead Regeneration. As I reported at that time, this building is in excellent condition and does not need money spent on it…
…but there are hundreds of other buildings in the Borough that would. Egerton House recently published their 2023 accounts which showed a Gross Profit for the year of £403,775 down from £611.657 the previous year. Operating Profit was £14,543 down from £87,869 the previous year. This years accounts also showed that Egerton House CIC is owed a staggering £345,963 from Wirral Chamber up from £310,916 the previous year. As you can see this CIC is awash with money. The main business on the top floor of Egerton House is a very tastefully decorated Party Venue called Dockside which is run by a company called Jaidan Events. This company has one director Sharon Stanton who is Paula Basnett’s sister. Is this company getting favourable treatment? I don’t know but again probably not a good look. Egerton House is owned by Wirral Council but there has been talk over the last couple of years that it will be transferred to Wirral Chamber of Commerce. Who in the council is pushing for this? Are they ex Chamber staff?
Another CIC linked to Chamber and Councillor Basnett is Woodside CIC. Again they receive large sums from Wirral Council. Paula Basnett was a director but resigned in 2021 and was replaced by Wirral Chamber of Commerce. The other 2 directors are Kate Eugenie, an employee of Wirral Chamber
and a Dan Dooley who as far as I know has no relationship with Chamber. They recently lodged their latest accounts with Companies House which show they had revenues of £291,978 this year down from £522,172 the previous year. After expenses they actually suffered a loss of £74,999 this year and a profit of £61,666 the previous year. Incredibly they owe Wirral Chamber of Commerce £350,098 this year up from £271,395 the previous year. Money seems to be juggled around these companies like snuff at a wake. When we met the two employees of Chamber one of them told us that they were operating markets from Woodside even though their licence had not been renewed. He said that Council had written to them stating that they were aware Markets were taking place and it needed to stop. I see from their social media channels that they operated 2 markets in December. I was of the opinion that nobody within a certain distance of Birkenhead Market could be licenced to operate a market but I may be wrong. He also told us that the numerous Wooden Huts used for the markets at Woodside had been paid for by way of an EU grant. He said when they stopped doing markets they would have to pay to store these cabins for 10 years after they were funded in case the EU came to check on them. Is this value for money? One of the businesses that operate out of Woodside is a bar called Pausha. I have been informed that this is a collective name taken from Paula and her sister Sharon’s first names. According to companies house
this company has only one director Paula Basnett. Is this company getting favourable treatment? I don’t know but again probably not a good look. Obviously, the more money that is given to Woodside CIC improves the prospects for this company. I have checked this companies’ website and its does not contain any of the company’s registered information. By law it should. And as the owner is chair of Wirral Chamber surely she should know this? Ironically the other bar she operates called The Library in Oxton also has none of this information on its website. Is this simply an oversight?
Every registered company that has a website is required by law to include certain key pieces of information. No matter what trade you are in, you need to have the following information on your website:
o Your registered company name
o Your company registration number
o The place of registration (usually written as a country or city)
o The office address the company is registered to
The other company in this web is The Lauries on Claughton Road in Birkenhead. This is a private limited not for profit company. You may remember that there was controversy in the past when in 2017 locals claimed that they had been locked out of the building by management. Paula was a director of this company since 2015 but resigned as a director on the 7th December shortly after we raised questions about the amount of council revenue these companies receive. She has replaced herself with Stephen McHardy, one of the Chamber employees we met before Christmas. The other directors are once again Kate Eugenie, a Chamber employee and Emma Wilkes whom as far as I know has no connection with Chamber. I think the building is owned by Wirral Council but is on a long lease agreement. The Lauries Limited rents out rooms and meeting space in the building. They also have a large 120-seat licensed function room upstairs which is available for hire for weddings, birthdays etc. According to the website this is operated by “Our Events management Company Jaidan Events” which is of course owned by Paula’s sister. Again, is this company getting favourable treatment? I don’t know, but again, probably not a good look. This company takes advantage of the “Exemption of full accounts” which most companies of this size do. Again this company owes Wirral chamber £14,920 up from £10,267 the previous year. These are the only companies that are on Wirral Chambers accounts as owing or being owed money. No other company in Wirral benefits from this facility. I sent an FOI to Wirral Council asking how much The Lauries have received from the Council this year and I was sent a link to every single monthly payment Wirral council have made to every supplier and told to go through that as it contains the information I requested. I don’t have time to do this, so I have no idea how much they have received.
And this brings me to the purpose of this exercise. £85 Million has been received by Wirral Council to regenerate the “Left Bank” and Liscard and every single town on the Left Bank is receiving money but New Brighton has not been allocated a single penny. We are a Day Resort, yet our public realm is left to rot. Bins rusted away, benches not fit to sit on and we have to fight to keep our public toilets open. It’s a long time since our Seafront looked so tired. And we were told all along to wait for the Masterplan. And what did that deliver? A computer generated idyllic plan which local land owners will have to follow and not a single penny in funding to make it a reality. And companies like these linked to Wirral Chamber and its Chair are drowning in public money with what I believe is little or no scrutiny and often dished out by ex Chamber staff members who left to work for Wirral Council.
I would ask that our own ward councillors in particular stand up for New Brighton and demand that we get some financial help to regenerate our lovely town.
TIMELINE
| Date | Event | Notes |
| 26 Nov 2018 | Wirral Growth Company JV with Muse approved | Cabinet approval; JV formally established 2019 (50:50 Wirral Council & Muse) |
| 2019 | Wirral Growth Company formally established | Partnership begins operating |
| 2013–2023 | Mark Basnett Managing Director, Wirral Growth Company | Led JV with Muse for ~10 years (exact start date earlier, stepped down 2023) |
| 20 Nov 2020 | Pausha Ltd incorporated | Founders: Paula B. Basnett & Sharon M. Stanton |
| 2020 | Paula Basnett appointed Chief Executive | Wirral Chamber of Commerce |
| 04 Jan 2021 | Future High Streets Fund award | £24.6m allocation (deadline extended to 2026) |
| 29 Jan 2021 | Town Investment Plan submitted | Submitted to Government |
| 17 Mar 2021 | Birkenhead Market temporary option report | Linked to Future High Streets Fund |
| Jul 2021 (15 Jul) | £25m Town Deal offer | Govt accepted Town Investment Plan |
| 2021 | Paula Basnett joins Birkenhead Town Deal Board | Represents Wirral Chamber of Commerce |
| 20 Sep 2021 | Sharon Stanton resigns | Leaves Pausha Ltd as director |
| 20 Nov 2021 | Pausha Ltd share allocation changes | Jessica 5, Paula 45, Sharon 5, Jamie 5 |
| Mar 2021 – Mar 2022 | Birkenhead 2040 Framework Draft | Published 2021; endorsed by Council on 9 Mar 2022 |
| 1 Apr 2022 | Pausha Ltd share consolidation | Reduced to 20 shares total |
| 2022 | Wirral Council approves disposal of Egerton House | Disposal to Chamber; linked to Town Deal funding |
| 07 Apr 2022 – 2023 | Town Deal Tranche 1 business cases | Approval triggered release of first funds |
| 15 Feb 2022 | Levelling Up Fund Round 1 announced | £9.7m for Birkenhead Gateway / Dock Branch Park surveys |
| 16 Feb 2023 | Pausha Ltd office relocation | From 1 Pacific Rd to 6 Abbots Quay |
| 19 Jan 2023 | Levelling Up Fund Round 2 announced | £19.6m for Waterfront/Woodside, £10.8m Liscard |
| Jan 2023 – Mar 2026 | Birkenhead Waterfront investment (LUF2) | Includes Woodside regeneration projects |
| Early 2023 | Mark Basnett joins Wirral Chamber commercial team | After stepping down from Wirral Growth Company |
| Apr 2023 | Oxton Society newsletter article | Features Basnett / Pausha Ltd |
| 2023 | Woodside regeneration plan launched | Council planning Woodside Waterfront regeneration |
| 2023 | Pausha Ltd operates restaurants | The Library (Oxton) & Pausha Winebar (Woodside Ferry Village) |
| 2023–present | Paula Basnett Head of Councillors (Wirral) | Oversees Town Deal & regeneration schemes |
| 01 Nov 2023 – 31 Mar 2024 | House of Fraser demolition | Enabling works for new Birkenhead Market |
| Feb 2024 | Woodside Ferry regeneration project announced | Announced before public consultation ended |
| 29 Feb 2024 | Chamber purchases Egerton House | Bought for £1.975m |
| 27 Mar 2024 | Birkenhead Market relocation decision | Market to move to former Argos (Princes Pavement) by 2026 |
| Mar 2024 | Public consultation ends | Related to Woodside regeneration |
| 2024 | Woodside regeneration project funding | £23m total (£19.4m Levelling Up Fund + Birkenhead Town Deal) |
| 2024 | Woodside Ferry Terminal regeneration | £9m project, contractor: Warbreck Engineering & Construction |
| Apr 2025 – 31 Mar 2027 | Town Deal extension | National deadline extension for spend |
| 04 Sep 2025 – ongoing | Birkenhead Market update paper | Latest progress on procurement & fitting out |
| 2025 | Paula Basnett register of interests | Continues to declare Chamber roles & Town Deal links |
The Times Article
Fraudster Who Breached Low Pay Laws Won Government Contract
7 min read·Mar 29, 2026
Asif Hamid, who went on the run after conning Children in Need, reinvented himself as an entrepreneur but has links to firms that went bust owing £6.2 million tax
A company run by a Labour council appointee once convicted of defrauding BBC Children in Need received almost £1 million in government contracts despite failing to pay staff the minimum wage, The Times can reveal.
Asif Hamid, who runs a call centre empire, was appointed by the Labour-run Liverpool city region in 2017, serving as the mayor Steve Rotheram’s business lead until 2023.
His firm, The Contact Company, secured lucrative central government work despite his criminal past and its breaches of minimum wage laws.
His company won nearly £800,000 in telecoms contracts from the Treasury and VisitBritain between 2022 and 2024 and a place on a multi-billion pound government-approved contractor agreement in 2021.
The revelation raises questions for the government as to how Hamid’s firm passed due diligence checks on suppliers.
Hamid went on the run in Pakistan in 1990 after being arrested for conning a hotel in Burnley and the charity BBC Children in Need out of £4,500 by misleading donors about fundraisers. In 1996 he handed himself in and was jailed for ten months at Burnley crown court.
He had convictions aged 19 for possessing an offensive weapon in a public place and, aged 20, for deception, after cashing a benefit cheque that he falsely claimed had never arrived.
Hamid has reinvented himself as an entrepreneur, building a network of call centre businesses on the Wirral, bolstered by public grants and contracts.
He sat on the local economic partnership (LEP) from 2010 and served as its chair between 2017 and 2023, and chaired the Wirral Chamber of Commerce.
Hamid, who was awarded an MBE and was photographed with David Cameron when hosting the prime minister on a visit to the region, described himself as a “leading entrepreneur” whose expertise was “highly sought by local and national commercial organisations, as well as by members of parliament”.
In October 2010, his firm bought a 29,500 sq ft office from receivers after the collapse of Felton, a building firm in Birkenhead, with a £250,000 Wirral council Think Big grant and a loan from NatWest.
In 2014, it was awarded £1 million by the LEP that Hamid, its founder and chief executive, sat on. The sum, which amounted to a quarter of all the money handed out in the Wirral area, was granted alongside an extra £40,800 for staff training.
The company, which already had a turnover of £10 million, used the money to move into a new 900-seat premises and take on new staff.
At the time, the LEP and Hamid denied any conflict of interest. Liverpool city region said: “At no point was the LEP board or its members, including Mr Hamid, involved in decision making as to appraisal of applications or awards of grant.”
In 2017 Liverpool city council faced a backlash when it approved a 45,000 sq ft waterfront call centre for Hamid’s company on prime land, without a public bidding process.
Rotheram defended the deal, praising The Contact Company as “one of the city region’s more recent success stories”. The plan, which a source said was drawn up at a turbulent time when the council had no permanent chief executive, was later scrapped.
A whistleblower claimed to have raised specific concerns about Hamid’s past with senior Labour Party figures in Merseyside, but these were ignored. “I was shocked,” the source said. “They just turned a blind eye.”
Hamid has no recent criminal convictions but three companies he was linked to have collapsed and owe millions to HMRC and Barclays Bank, according to filings.
TCCL Realisations Limited (formerly known as The Contact Company), The Contact Specialists and Tower Wharf Limited owe HMRC a combined £6.2 million, which liquidators say is unlikely to be recovered.
In 2024, Hamid sold The Contact Company in a pre-pack administration, a process which wipes out creditors but allows an otherwise profitable business to continue trading. He continues to work as its chief executive after the business was sold to a rival firm, Sensée.
Failed to pay minimum wage
Hamid’s business The Contact Company has been named and shamed by the Department for Business and Trade for failing to pay staff the minimum wage. A 2025 listing, relating to historical underpayments during Hamid’s tenure between 2016 and 2019 before the company was sold, revealed 111 workers were underpaid by a total of £2,800.
He also appears to have embellished his academic credentials, claiming on his LinkedIn profile to have completed an MBA at Harvard Business School between 2002 and 2004.
The Ivy League university told The Times they had no record of him studying for a degree. Harvard confirmed that Hamid completed a short executive leadership programme.
Hamid’s business and criminal past raises questions about why his companies continued to receive taxpayer cash.
Peter Smith, a procurement expert, questioned The Contact Company’s place on a £1.5 billion list of approved call centre suppliers despite owing millions in tax. “The fact that this company went bust would usually lead to the customer terminating the contract,” he said. Those familiar with the government’s procurement process claimed that compliance checks were carried out following the Sensée takeover.
The Cabinet Office said: “All of our agreements are awarded in line with procurement regulations and follow robust supplier assurance processes.”
LCR said that Hamid’s election as LEP chair was “an appointment which neither mayor Rotheram or the combined authority were involved in”, adding that he was given the LCR business portfolio by combined authority members collectively.
Liverpool city council said: “We have been on a transformational improvement journey since 2020, and since 2023 have had a new political and officer management team focused on delivering the best services and outcomes for residents.”
Hamid did not respond to a request for comment.
Return to Bomb Alley 1982 – The Falklands Deception, by Paul Cardin
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Wirral In It Together 