FOUR Bayswater organisations are locked in a battle to secure council funding for two 2015/16 street festivals.

The city has allocated $30,000 for two street festivals and received five submissions:

• Noranda Village Christmas or Easter Street Festival (Community Connect)

• Maylands Street Festival (Maylands Business Association)

• Maylands Street Festival (Local Arts and Community Events)

• Bardon Park urban camp out (The Event Agency)

The list of contenders sees the MBA and LACE go head-to-head to run the popular Maylands Street Festival, which has previously attracted more than 10,000 people.

The MBA ran the last of three biennial events in 2012, with a November 2014 festival not happening because the MBA couldn’t organise enough funding or volunteers (Voice, December 11, 2014).

LACE chair Catherine Ehrhardt says the MBA is in disarray: she says it has not held an AGM in two years and has virtually no financial members.

“The ratepayers lost out last year because the MBA was in free-fall,” she says.

“How do we know they won’t get the funds and let down the ratepayers again?

“It is a big risk—they need to be more transparent.”

Ms Ehrhardt used to be with the MBA but left to establish LACE, which runs the Maylands Hawkers Markets.

The Voice contacted MBA president Dominic Cuscuna, but he didn’t get back to us.

The applications come before council later this month.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK