East Midlands Railway criticised for not awarding £5,000 competition prize to ‘poor quality’ entries

East Midlands Railway has been criticised by the Advertising Standards Agency after failing to award a £5,000 competition prize.

A contest appeared on its website in February, inviting members of the public to send in their ideas about how they can "Build Back Better," with the winning entrant due to receive the £5,000 reward.

But Abellio, the Dutch firm that operates the East Midland Railway franchise, cancelled the competition, rejecting all the submitted ideas.

They said it was because of a high volume of what they felt to be poor quality entries, which would not be suitable for implementation.

They said they were also starting to see the financial impact of the pandemic on UK rail services at that point, which only added to their decision to withdraw the competition.

They admitted that doing so would likely cause disappointment to entrants, but they felt they had acted within the terms of the competition, which stated they had the right to cancel it at any point.

They've since decided to cancel any future Build Back Better competitions.

The Advertising Standards Authority said the advertising code requires at least one competent, independent judge, if the selection of a winning entry of a competition was open to subjective interpretation.

They said: "We had not seen anything to indicate that any such independent judge or panel had been involved in the decision to award the prize."

The watchdog added: "We told Abellio East Midlands to ensure that they awarded prizes in future competitions as described in their marketing communications, to make sure that promotions were conducted under proper supervision, and to avoid causing unnecessary disappointment."