The Wellington City Council is $50,000 out of pocket after a grant for an event that was cancelled has still not been paid back.
Wellington City Council says they are owed $50,000 from the organiser of Wellington Fashion Week (file photo). Photo: 123rf
The council gave Wellington Fashion Week organiser Cameron Sneddon the money towards the event in 2015, but it was cancelled.
The council's spokesman Richard MacLean said Mr Sneddon had not paid the money back, and had not been in touch about it.
"He's not replying to our emails and not picking up the phone when we call him."
Mr MacLean said the council had to think about the cost of going after Mr Sneddon.
"In terms of legal fees and other fees it would be throwing good money after bad money basically."
He said the police haven't been involved.
"It's basically, as far as we're concerned, a contractual agreement that's gone bad, but if Mr Sneddon wants to get in touch we would be more than happy to talk to him."
Mr Sneddon said he and the council sorted the matter out last November, and any claims he was refusing to talk to the council were completely false.
He and the council had come to an agreement the council was satisfied with, he said.
"I haven't heard anymore from them on the matter since last year."
He said the council was "trying to throw me under the bus".
Mr MacLean said the council did as much due diligence as it could before handing out grants and most of the time things went well, but sometimes they did not.
The grant came from the council's development fund which was worth about $3 million.
