New row over Mathew Street fiasco

Aug 10 2007 by David Bartlett, Liverpool Daily Post

LEAKED minutes from a safety committee show senior Liverpool council officers knew about problems with the Mathew Street Festival three weeks before the council leader was told.

Minutes from a July 11 meeting of the Safety Advisory Group (SAG), obtained by the Daily Post, show that Colin Hilton, chief executive of the council, was to be advised as a “matter of urgency” about the problems.

Cllr Paul Brant, deputy Labour leader, said it was now “totally inappropriate” for Mr Hilton to continue running the inquiry into the fiasco.

But council leader Warren Bradley said he did not see a problem with Mr Hilton continuing to head the inquiry.

A council spokesman said the July 11 meeting resulted in experts Capita Symonds being called in to assess the plans.

But this did not happen until a full two weeks later.

The meetings of the SAG are attended by the council, emergency services and private sector representatives. Its authority is required before large events can take place.

At the meeting Paul Speers, of the major events planning team of Merseyside police, raised a number of concerns.

He wanted to know who had been identified to replace Lee Forde, events manager at the Culture Company, who had resigned.

He also wanted to know who would be deployed as the safety officer for the event and was concerned about “late notification, implementation of planning processes and event details” and the location of stages.

Eddy Grant, operations and safety manager at the Culture Company, “spoke exhaustively and highlighted concerns”.

“Based on the best advice currently available to me, and using my expertise it is clear that the current planning and delivery processes supporting the Mathew Street Festival have failed to meet our obligations,” he said. “To add a personal perspective the efforts required to meet these obligations are clearly outside any single individual’s ability to deliver (and) as a matter of urgency we need to identify what is necessary to support getting solutions in place.

“Even then it may well be that the event cannot be delivered to the standards we have set ourselves in relation to safety.”

Two key dates were identified as critical to make sure the event took place: July 20 submission of draft of the event documentation, and a table top exercise on August 7.

Failure to meet these dates “will result in the required approval of SAG to be withheld. If this is the case the festival cannot legally take place.”

The minutes conclude that as a matter of urgency they be sent to CEO LCC (Colin Hilton).

“Individual core members will circulate to their appropriate chief officers.”

Minutes from a June meeting also reveal that Mr Grant said there were issues for the planning process after the resignation of Mr Forde.

Cllr Brant said: “This explodes the myth that the impending disaster was not known at the highest levels.

“It is now totally inappropriate for the chief executive to conduct an inquiry into an issue where he may be partly responsible.

“The clear conclusion from that minute is that serious question.”

A council spokesman said: “The safety advisory group was discussing the Mathew Street Festival for several months, and following concerns at their meeting four weeks ago that independent experts were called in to review the public safety aspects of the event.

“Councillors will have the opportunity to discuss the inquiry being held into recent events at an extraordinary meeting of the city council.”