NEXT year’s Altona Beach Festival has been killed off after Hobsons Bay council last week voted to slash funding to $10,000.
A report presented at the meeting stated the council was developing an events and festival strategy, “allowing the festival to take a break in 2014”.
Strand ward councillor Peter Hemphill moved that the council continue to fund an Altona festival for $10,000 if a local committee wanted to run it.
He said the festival could take a different format, such as being absorbed into Australia Day.
Last year, the council allocated $40,000 for the festival.
PICTURE GALLERY: Altona Beach Festival in March.
In 2010, the council rejected a budget submission from the former festival committee, Operation Recreation, which had requested $10,000 in “survival funding”.
The committee said it cost $85,000 to run a festival.
The council, then led by Cr Tony Briffa, subsequently took over the running of the festival and moved the event from Cherry Lake to the Altona foreshore. Cr Briffa, who represents the Cherry Lake ward, voted against last week’s motion.
“They’re obviously just playing political games about this because again it’s Altona v Williamstown,” Cr Briffa said. “They’re talking about new festivals in Williamstown all the time . . . [such as] the beer festival.”
Cr Sandra Wilson, who also represents Altona, said the beach festival was only ever an interim festival.
“I think it’s fairly costly. It’s time- intensive and I think that if you spoke to the traders they would say that it’s very close to Australia Day … so it just needs to be thought about in the context of the whole of Hobsons Bay and the festival strategy that’s emerging.”
Sharon Walsh, of the Altona Village Traders Association, said her organisation had no intention of running the festival.
“What can you do with $10,000? Ten grand won’t give us a festival. It would be a minor event.”
