Officers to blame for fiasco – Bradley

Aug 10 2007 by David Bartlett, Liverpool Daily Post

A rescue bid for the Mathew Street Festival failed to deliver what people wanted yesterday. David Bartlett reports

LIVERPOOL council leader Warren Bradley last night blamed paid officials for the Mathew Street Festival fiasco.

He spoke out after it was confirmed this year’s event could not include any of its famous outdoor stages, as revealed in the Daily Post earlier this week.

Cllr Bradley said he believed the festival could have been rescued but the “will” to do so from other agencies was not there.

As expected, the rescue efforts have produced only an expanded indoor festival with 40 venues already signed up and potentially 20 more to come.

But with an average capacity generously estimated at 500 people, it means the festival can welcome only around 20,000 revellers instead of the 137,000 expected on Bank Holiday Monday alone.

The Daily Post can also exclusively reveal that senior Liverpool council officials were aware of serious problems with health and safety for the event three weeks before Cllr Bradley claims he was told.

The decision to axe the outdoor stages for the August Bank Holiday event was reiterated yesterday following a meeting of the Culture Company’s board.

The cancellation was originally announced last Thursday after consultants said plans would put the pubic at risk.

Despite 72 hours of intense talks, it proved impossible to save the outdoor element, the main part of the festival.

Health and safety concerns about hosting 350,000 festival-goers across a full weekend could not be overcome.

The council said 40 venues had offered to stage bands including the Krazy House, Mood, Walkabout, the Rat and Parrot and Liverpool University’s Mountford Hall.

It is also hoped that another 20 will sign up, including the Picket, Zanzibar, Korova, Heebie-Jeebies, PanAm, Babycream, Blue, Society and Le Bateau.

All 10 Streetwaves acts – top unsigned bands – will play at the Barfly on Bank Holiday Monday, while Creamfields has offered to host acts on Saturday, August 25.

The council said many of the bands scheduled to play the festival have already found alternative venues and full listings will be announced next week.

The vast majority of venues are not expected to charge, but they will have the final say.

The council revealed last night that there will be a children’s festival behind St John’s Garden, where there will be an artificial beach and family activities.

Cllr Bradley said: “I am absolutely saddened that there will not be outdoor stages for the Mathew Street Festival.

“It is very embarrassing for me as leader of Liverpool City Council.”

When asked who was responsible, he said: “It’s down to officers who are paid through the public purse to deliver events.

“The investigation will find out who is culpable.

“If somebody is found guilty I am sure they will be dealt with.

“Of course, it is still the Mathew Street Festival. It was always indoors anyway, it’s only in the last few years that it has grown and grown.”

“We tried but it could not go ahead [outdoor stages].”

He said he was unable to get support for his plans, including having more stages than originally planned to spread out the crowds.

He admitted he had failed to secure joint agency agreement for these plans.

“Certain partners would not play ball with us.”

He said he would not name them but they might “come out in the wash”.

“I personally believe that the problems could have been bridged with real will, and I don’t think that was there.”

He said he was expecting “certain things” to come out of the council’s internal inquiry and vowed that outdoor stages would definitely return next year.

The four directors of festival founders Cavern City Tours, Bill Heckle, Dave Jones, Alex McKechnie and Richard Blasbury, issued a joint statement.

They said they wanted “to express their shared sense of shock and acute disappointment that the 2007 festival will not feature outside stages.”

They also wanted it made clear that they had not been in control of the event since 2001 when it was handed over to the council and Culture Company so it could be turned into a “world class” event.

They said: “It’s important to note, also, that Beatleweek is totally unaffected.

“We must keep a perspective. It is a music festival. Glastonbury was cancelled in 2001 on health and safety grounds.

“A solution was found and Glastonbury is bigger and better than ever.

“However, we must remember that many of the challenges we have been faced with are due in large part to the massive regeneration that is going on in Liverpool.”

Mr Heckle told the Daily Post earlier this week that the directors would be taking back much more control of the festival now.

When Professor Drummond Bone, chairman of the Culture Company, left the meeting at St George’s Hall he said recent events were to be “much regretted”.

He said there had been some discussion in the four-hour meeting about the way the board related to the city council and the information they were given.

Prof Bone added: “What I would like to stress is a lot of the Mathew Street programme will go ahead.”

Jason Harborow, chief executive of the Culture Company, escaped most of the media glare, leaving through another exit.

When asked if he was still on board, he said: “I have never said I am going anywhere else.”

Labour deputy leader Cllr Paul Brant said: “I am pleased that something has been salvaged from this disaster, but this is not the Mathew Street Festival that people were expecting and have come to love.

“It’s doubtful that the capacity of the city centre venues will accommodate any more than a fraction of the total number of visitors.”

Liam Fogarty, chairman of amayorforliverpool.org, said: “The leader of the city council fell into a hole last week and couldn’t stop digging. His promises to save the outdoor festival came to nothing.

“Liverpool’s licensees and en- tertainment profes- sionals deserve our thanks for salvaging what they can.

“The council has turned an embar- rassment into a humiliation. In trying to take credit after all that’s happened, they’ve shown them- selves to be shameless as well as clueless.

“This has been a fiasco that cannot be spun away.”

davidbartlett