We Applied Our Own Method to Ourselves

Across a dozen published reports, the recurring finding is not that individuals behaved dishonestly. It is that the same person held multiple roles and neither role acknowledged the other. The problem, in each case, is the absence of a framework that requires disclosure. That is the structural argument. It should apply here.

SIBA Digital is run by Damian Roche, trading as Churchtown Media Ltd (Company No. 16960442). Churchtown Media also operates SouthportGuide.co.uk, a commercial visitor directory for Southport, and The Sandgrounder, an opinion publication covering Southport public life. Both operate in the same geography that SIBA investigates. Until today, neither carried a formal declaration of that relationship on the same pages where the investigative work sits.

That is a gap by our own standard. The standard is this: interests that might reasonably affect a reader's assessment of the work should be visible where the work is read. It is the same standard applied to the council's 3% administration fee in the BID operating agreement. A small financial nexus that most people would not consider significant, but that a governance methodology requires to be stated regardless.

What we found

SouthportGuide earns revenue from featured listings sold to local businesses. It covers the Southport visitor economy. SIBA investigates the governance of public institutions in the same geography. The two activities are not in competition. A private commercial directory and a publicly funded tourism platform serve different functions. But the overlap is material enough to state.

The Sandgrounder is owned by the same company. Its about page named Churchtown Media but not Damian Roche or the company number. By the standard applied to Stand Up For Southport in a published report, financial relationships with subjects of coverage should be disclosed in the coverage itself, not only on an about page. The Sandgrounder's attribution needed to be more explicit.

Neither SIBA's reports nor the individual pages of those reports carried a line identifying the author's commercial interests in the same local economy. The methodology page states what SIBA does not do. It did not state what else the author does.

What we changed

A disclosure page is now live at siba.digital/disclosure. It lists every commercial property operated by Churchtown Media Ltd, explains the revenue model of each, and states the standing firewall rule: no entity under active SIBA investigation or named in a published SIBA report may hold a paid relationship with any Churchtown Media property. It declares that Churchtown Media is not a BID levy payer, that Damian Roche holds no political affiliation, and that as of 10 June 2026 no agency client and no SouthportGuide listing holder is a subject of an active SIBA investigation.

Six published SIBA reports, those touching tourism, hospitality, or local media, now carry a one-line author disclosure linking to that page. It is short. It is where the work is read. That is the standard.

The Sandgrounder's about page now carries named ownership: Damian Roche, Churchtown Media Ltd, company number. The disclosure page is linked from the footer of every Churchtown Media property.

What this does not change

The findings in every published report remain what they are. The documents disclosed by FOI are the documents. The Companies House filings are the filings. The SLA clause is the clause. None of that is affected by whether the person who found it runs a visitor directory. But a reader who knows both things can make that assessment themselves. That is the point of disclosure. It is not a concession that the work is compromised. It is a recognition that the reader's right to assess it fully matters more than the author's preference for a clean frame.

The same method we apply to every institution we investigate has been applied here. It found something. We published what it found. That is how it is supposed to work.