Mayor slams show promoters

South Wairarapa Mayor Adrienne Staples has fired back at a Wellington event's promoter who earlier this week accused her and council officers of misleading him over consents needed for a La De Da Music Festival.
Mrs Staples says Josh Mossman's account of what took place between his organisation and the council over bringing the music festival to Martinborough was "far from the truth".
Mr Mossman claims he had been told resource consents for staging the huge event, for which thousands of tickets have already been sold, were not necessary - only to now learn consents will be needed.
According to Mr Mossman, the change of direction could mean abandoning what he believes would be the biggest event in the town's history, with a subsequent loss to his company of $1 million and more to the community.
But Mrs Staples says if Josh Mossman and his festival co-director Daniel Warwick had bothered to read an events application that had been sent to their organisation they would have known that events running after 10pm needed resource consent.
Mrs Staples says Mr Mossman had called to see her in March to discuss the prospect of the promoters staging a New Year's Eve concert and that she had supported the idea in principle.
At that meeting it had been explained to Mr Mossman the council would not give financial help or concessions and that the onus was on concert organisers to ascertain the consents and licences needed by discussing those aspects with senior council officers.
Three months later the event application had been sent to Mr Mossman, clearly showing the "after 10pm" need for a resource consent.
"Given the scale of the event, ensuring the boxes were ticked well before - and certainly before tickets went on sale - would seem prudent.
The next month after approaches from neighbours, the council's planning and environment manager had emailed the company confirming they needed a resource consent " which they then tried to avoid by approaching me" but accepted the process by a later email, she said.
The planning and environment manager then organised a meeting with the promoters " to ensure there were no further misunderstandings.
Mrs Staples says it was then ascertained that although the company called themselves "professional event organisers" they had not spoken with police, fire or ambulance about traffic control or emergency services.
"They had not spoken to the neighbours, or considered how they were going to control 12,000 tipsy people for the three days this event had morphed into."
Mrs Staples says the council brokered meetings between essential services and the organisers. "Our staff have spent hours walking them through the process at no cost to them.
"We have still not received a resource consent application, through no fault of ours."
Mrs Staples says the concert organisers intended to "dump 12,000 people on a small, rural town without proper planning and consideration of what to do if there was an emergency".