DCC Moves To Recover Stop The Stadium Debt

The DCC has initiated legal proceedings to recover the debt owed to it by Stop the Stadium Society Inc.

The debt of $11,060.91 was awarded by the High Court and Court of Appeal as costs following the Society’s unsuccessful legal challenge to the Council’s consultation process to proceed with the construction of the Forsyth Barr Stadium.

Dunedin City Council Chief Executive, Jim Harland, believes Stop the Stadium Society has been given adequate time to make arrangements for payment. He points to the Court’s decision awarding cost to the DCC which was delivered on the 15 September 2009, and a letter from the DCC to Stop the Stadium in December 2009 in which the Society was offered a repayment option over twelve months. Further correspondence in 2010 with Stop the Stadium has seen no progress toward settlement of the matter on terms acceptable to the Council.

"The offer by the Stop the Stadium group to repay interest on the debt up to the local body elections and then paying the balance off by December 2010 was not acceptable to the Council as it did not provide ratepayers with any guarantee that the debt would be repaid" Mr Harland said.

“In the interests of the city’s ratepayers I believe this is an appropriate course of action to recover a debt determined by the Courts. I regret that all other attempts at negotiation with Stop the Stadium have failed to elicit any response” says Mr Harland.