Liberal Democrat Councillors have criticised a decision to delay an inquiry into the ‘Grand Departy‘ concert until after May’s Council elections.
Sparse crowd for Grand Departy
Sceptics expect many of those responsible for the financial disaster to stand down from the Council – or be defeated at the polls – meaning that they may escape the consequences of the their negligence.
Cllr Ian Cuthbertson, Lib Dem Spokesperson for Leisure, Culture and Tourism, had submitted a request for a review into the “planning, promotion and delivery” of City of York Council organised events for last year’s Tour De France.
These included the £187,000 loss-making ‘Grand Departy’ music concert at Huntington Stadium.
Originally, a review was given the green light last year. However, at this week’s Learning & Culture Overview and Scrutiny Committee Labour and Conservative councillors supported moves to delay the inquiry until after May’s local elections and after that month’s inaugural Tour De Yorkshire.
Cllr Ian Cuthbertson, commented:
“There is widespread disappointment that Labour and Conservative councillors chose to delay the review into the Grand Departy concert at Huntington Stadium. Besides a loss to taxpayers of £187,000 from the concert, there are serious questions about public safety at the event.
“I called for an immediate review so that we could establish what had gone wrong and then be sure that lessons would be learned before May’s Tour de Yorkshire event. Putting back the scrutiny review until after the local elections and the Tour de Yorkshire must now raise further concerns not only about safety and event planning but also about accountability for the Grand Departy financial debacle”.
Details of the meeting can be found here: http://democracy.york.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=669&MId=8366. Conservative Jenny Brooks joined with Labour councillors and Independent Sian Wiseman to support the delay.
City of York Council overspent its budget for the Tour De France with the ‘Events and Festivals’ programme losing taxpayers £252,000. The poorly received ‘Grand Departy’ music concert at Huntington Stadium was the single biggest loss. The event cost £206,000 to stage but ticket sales meant only £19,000 in revenue was brought in, producing an overall loss of £187,000.
Concerns also emerged over public safety at the concert. Minutes from the July 2014 meeting of the council’s Safety Advisory Group highlighted problems including, locked fire exits, blocked emergency exits and no licence to allow people to use covered seating areas.