Pressure for inquiry into “Grand Departy” £187,000 flop grows

Sparse crowd for  Grand Departy

Sparse crowd for Grand Departy

Councillors are being pressured to hold a scrutiny inquiry into the Huntington Stadium concert – held on 4th July – which looks likely to cost York taxpayers £187,000.

The event was tagged onto the Tour De France but major questions remain unanswered about how –and why – the concert came to be added to a sports event programme.

Bills now available for scrutiny on the Council web site suggest that an event management company, based near Blackpool, was given the contract to organise the event.

Any inquiry is likely to look carefully at the tender arrangements and content of the event contracts.

Private meeting notes will be scrutinised with one key question being why no decision to cancel was taken, with tickets sales in the low hundreds, only a couple of weeks before the event was due to be staged?

When originally launched, the York Council had talked of 10,000 attending the concert.

Some tickets were heavily discounted. Councillors are likely to ask for details of any free tickets given away by organisers and Council officials.

The review might also look at the arrangements for buying and selling merchandise, while the £33,000 loss on “camping” arrangements may also be probed.

Any involvement by York in the proposed “Tour de Yorkshire”” is likely to be dependant on satisfactory answers being provided at a “Grand Departy” inquiry.

The Tour de Yorkshire is due to take place just 4 days before Council elections are held in the City