Council denies the sessions have been organised in an attempt to quell anger over the city’s new “Forever Young” and says they were always part of the strategy roll-out.

But that’s not how many in the community will see it.

The response to the city’s new logo has been overwhelmingly negative.

While the logo itself – a stylised “B” in a range of bright colours – has had its own share of critics, most of the concern has been directed at the “Forever Young” tagline that runs beside it. And fair enough.

As part of the original consultation in developing a Bathurst brand, residents were invited to take part in an online survey where they were asked to identify what makes Bathurst unique.

The Western Advocate’s request to see the collated results of that survey has been knocked back, but it would be a fair bet that Mount Panorama, heritage and Australia’s oldest inland European settlement would have featured among many respondents’ answers.

Just how the consultants got from there to Forever Young remains a mystery, though we’re told a video that accompanied the logo launch earlier this month helped explain it.

But that immediately should have been seen as a sign of failure. A city’s logo – and brand – should stand for itself without the need of a video to explain it.

Do we really believe that “Forever Young” is going to provide prospective visitors enough of a glimpse of Bathurst to entice them to come here and find out more?

There has also been significant criticism of the process behind the selection of the logo.

Council paid $40,000 to develop the logo but councillors were not invited to have their say on the final design and tagline before it was officially launched.

Instead, they saw it less than 24 hours before the rest of us and by then it was too late to make any changes they might have wanted.

If the consultants had considered other designs and taglines then those alternatives have remained a secret.

With that as the background, this week’s information sessions can reasonably be expected to descend into slanging matches.

It’s not too late to start again.