Sponsor terms

These terms are between Virtus Nemeton Ltd ("we", "us"), which operates The Commons, and the business named on the sponsor card ("you").

They apply to businesses. If you are buying as a consumer rather than for the purposes of a trade, business, craft or profession, stop and email us instead — this is not the right product for you, and the cancellation rights that protect consumers do not sit well with how the slot works.

One sponsor slot in one electoral ward. The slot is a single card showing your trading name, what you do, one line of your own text, and optionally a link to your website.

The card appears in the same position on every page of that ward, and it is the only sponsor card there. It is identical in size and placement to the card every sponsor of that ward has had before you and will have after you.

You are not buying advertising space by volume, impressions, clicks or any performance measure. We do not promise a number of people will see it, because we do not know how many people will use that ward.

A single payment, not a subscription. Nothing recurring is set up and nothing renews.

The price is fixed by a public rule: £1 for a ward with no current sponsor, and double the last winning payment for a ward that has one. The rule is published on the ward page and the price you are charged is calculated at the moment you pay.

The payment is taken by Stripe. We do not see or store your card details.

Until someone pays double, or until we end it under the clauses below. There is no fixed term.

That could be years. It could be the same afternoon. We cannot tell you which, and you should decide what to pay on the basis that it might be the same afternoon.

When another business pays double what you paid, your card is replaced by theirs immediately and your payment is not refunded.

This is the central term of the deal and it is deliberately blunt. You are paying to hold a position for as long as nobody outbids you, and the possibility of being outbid is the reason the price is what it is rather than a market rate for local advertising.

We will email you when you are displaced, at the address you gave us, and tell you what it would now cost to take the slot back. You are never under any obligation to.

We refund in full if we have not published your card, if we take it down other than through displacement or a breach of these terms, or if we charge you the wrong amount.

We do not refund because you were outbid, because you changed your mind after the card went live, or because the ward was quieter than you hoped.

If you ask for a refund before the card is published, you will get one.

It must describe a real business that actually trades, and describe it accurately.

It must not be political campaigning, and it must not name or target any individual.

It must not advertise anything a UK business could not lawfully advertise to the public, and it must not be gambling, high-cost short-term credit, or age-restricted goods.

It must not imply that your business is endorsed by, connected to, or speaks for the ward, its residents, its stewards, or the council.

We may take down a card that breaks these rules, and we will refund the payment when we do, unless the card was fraudulent.

No influence over anything a ward publishes, decides or votes on. Sponsors have no standing, no vote, and no special access to residents.

No say in moderation. If a resident criticises your business on a ward board, that post stays unless it breaks the ward’s own rules, and sponsoring the ward does not change that.

No data about residents. We do not profile readers, and nothing about a reader decides what they see — there is only one sponsor card in a ward and it is the same one for everybody.

No contact details. You do not receive a list of anyone.

Every payment is recorded against the ward that raised it and shown on the public treasury page, with the amount and the ward.

We intend that money to fund that ward — its costs, and what its residents decide to spend it on. We are not yet holding it in a separate account or as a trust, and we are not promising that any specific amount reaches any specific project.

Until we say otherwise in writing, treat your payment as a payment to us for the slot, not as a donation to your ward.

Your trading name, trade, blurb and website link are published — that is the product.

Your email address is not published and is not shown to residents. We use it to contact you about the slot.

We keep a record of your payment for as long as UK tax law requires.

If we shut the platform down or close a ward, we will tell you at the email you gave us and refund the payment for any slot you are currently holding.

We will not refund payments for slots you previously held and were outbid on.

We do not limit our liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited.

Otherwise our total liability to you is limited to the amount you paid us for the slot in question.

We are not liable for business losses — lost profit, lost custom, lost goodwill or lost opportunity.

We may change these terms for future sponsorships. The version you agreed to is recorded against your payment and is the one that governs it.

We will not change the terms of a slot you are already holding to your disadvantage.

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.