Cheeky opponents of regional government have scored a propaganda coup - by stealing the name of the Birmingham city region from under the noses of local councils.

The West Midlands No! campaign paid £20 to set up a new company at the end of last month, registering its name at Companies House as Birmingham, Coventry and the Black County City Region Ltd - an exact copy of the name chosen earlier this year for the shadow city region board by the seven West Midlands metropolitan authorities and Telford & Wrekin Council.

Council leaders were criticised for choosing such a cumbersome name after they agreed Birmingham should not be allowed to dominate the city region.

By registering the name before the councils, the West Midlands No! campaign has prevented the councils from forming a company of the same name.

The new company's secretary is West Midlands No! founder Stuart Parr, who is a national council member of the Campaign for an English Parliament and chairman of Telford & Wrekin United Kingdom Independence Party.

A fellow company director is John Franklyn, co-founder of Telford Council Watch, an organisation which seeks to expose waste at Telford & Wrekin Council, who said: "Most people haven't a clue what the city region is.

"Taxpayers haven't been consulted, but they will have to pick up the bill. This was the best way we could think of to publicise what is going on behind closed doors."

The shadow city region board, consisting of leaders of the eight West Midlands councils, has been working behind the scenes with the Government on a number of strategic projects including tackling unemployment and improving public transport.

Writing in The Birmingham Post in October, Simon Murphy, the city region project leader, described the board as a voluntary partnership seeking to generate a "much bigger bang for the public buck" by aligning money and policy across council borders.

Last night, Mr Murphy said: "I would like to thank the people who did this for all of the free publicity it has given us," he said.