Grant for T in the Park switch was paid after festival
Event ended two weeks before £150,000 handout
THE row over a £150,000 taxpayer-funded grant to help T in the Park move home took a new twist last night after it emerged the cash was not paid out until after the event.
The Scottish Government approved the handout after prospective Nationalist MSP Jennifer Dempsie set up a meeting between Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop and festival organisers.
But yesterday it became clear that while the cash was supposed to help with moving costs, it was not paid out until July 24 – almost two weeks after the event finished.
Last night, Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie urged First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to investigate.
He said: ‘T in t he Park has been great for Perth and Kinross and Scotland.
‘But as a thriving business, people will also want assurances that its success is not being built on the foundations of cronyism – £ 150,000 is a significant sum of money, so any state aid funding must be distributed fairly and transparently.’
Tin the Park was forced to relocate from its previous home at Balado, Kinrossshire, after 17 years because of safety concerns regarding an oil pipe.
But the transfer to the new site at Strathallan estate, Perthshire, faced controversy over traffic and environmental i ssues before f i nally being approved by councillors in May. Miss Dempsie personally contacted Miss Hyslop’s office on May 14 urging a meeting with festival organiser Geoff Ellis, of DF Concerts, and the minister due to ‘ extreme’ difficulties the firm faced over the move.
Following the meeting, on May 28, the one- off payment was agreed, prompting controversy about the decision to subsidise the multi-million-pound event with public cash. Miss Dempsie, the partner of SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson, was a key special adviser to the former First Minister Alex Salmond.
She worked for DF Concerts as a project manager for three months and left her post shortly after planning permission was secured and the meeting, which s he did not attend, was arranged.
Separately, it emerged Miss Dempsie wrote a letter to Perth and Kinross Council in which she did not explain that she was working for DF Concerts. She also used her position as a columnist in a local newspaper to praise T in the Park.
I n total the f estival has received nearly £ 400,000 of Scottish Government funding in the past three years, though DF Concerts is 78 per cent owned by LN-Gaiety Holdings Ltd, a company which posted pre-tax profits of £9million last year.
Miss Hysl o p yesterday revealed that DF Concerts will have to repay £50,000 each year if the festival does not take place at Strathallan in 2016 and 2017.
In a parliamentary response, she said the meeting was arranged due to ‘the proximity of the event and the extreme difficulties being faced by the organisers’.
DF Concerts said that Miss Dempsie was employed ‘ on a short-term contract’ to help with the planning process and site relocation but did not draft any planning documents.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘The awarding of funding followed normal procedures and the ministerial code was adhered to at all times.’
‘Funding must be distributed fairly’