Clan event creditors in new bid for money

CREDITORS of clan event The Gathering are seeking fresh meetings with government ministers and councillors over the £380,000 they are still owed more than two years later.

The private firm behind The Gathering, hailed as the centrepiece of the 2009 Year of the Homecoming, collapsed having made a loss of more than £500,000 and after running up debts of £720,000, leaving more than 100 creditors out of pocket.

However, although the debts incurred by public bodies have been covered with taxpayers’ funds, the money due to private companies is still outstanding. Both the Scottish Government and Edinburgh City Council, which backed the event, both deny responsibility for the debt.

PR consultant Martin Hunt, who speaks on behalf of the creditors, many of them small businesses, said he was seeking meetings with both bodies in an effort to resolve the issue.

“We did a good job for The Gathering, and to all intents and purposes it was a government initiative,” he said.

“We would never have got involved had we known there were cash flow problems. We are now seeking a meeting with the Scottish Government and Edinburgh City Council – both of whom want to wash their hands of this – to try and get a resolution.”

Investigations by both Holyrood and Edinburgh City Council absolved both bodies of any blame in the inquiry, although the Holyrood probe criticised Edinburgh council officials and councillors for mishandling the situation.

The Gathering was set up by Tory peer Jamie Sempill as part of a campaign to persuade visitors from around the globe to come to Scotland in 2009 during the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns.