Cllr Bradley added: "We came to the conclusion that the costs of staging a two-week series of concerts were greatly outweighed by our need to protect front-line services in education, social services and leisure. On balance, I think Liverpool residents would prefer us to spend money providing leisure facilities, good education for children and a decent level of social care for vulnerable people rather than staging a two-week pop festival. "We looked at three bids and potentially the contribution from the council would at best have been £500,000 and at worst over £750,000. On top of that would have been the cost of infra-structure around the site, cleaning and servicing the area which would have added thousands of pounds more. I honestly felt as leader that I could not justify asking the taxpayers of our city to pay that cost. "We have the new arena opening in 2008 and we can look forward to regular visits to the city by A-list artists as well as a new form of summer pops at Kings Dock. Liverpool is known world-wide and, at the start of 2008, we will be in a much stronger position because the new 10,600-seat arena and convention centre opens on the waterfront." The decision follows a detailed study of three bids from CMP, CI Events and Largeportion Ltd by a team of councillors. The scrutiny revealed that a subsidy of up to £750,000 could still have been needed from the city council, depending upon which company was selected. Cllr Bradley added: "We opened it up to competitive tender this year in a bid to minimise the cost to Liverpool residents. We are facing an extremely difficult budget settlement, and I feel strongly we cannot commit to it when we are also having to find money to protect vital frontline services for the people of Liverpool." But the Labour group is convinced the decision is wrong. Cllr Rotheram said: "The Lib-Dems have allowed the Summer Pops to cost the council taxpayers of Liverpool £3m to date and then, when we do eventually go out to tender and receive bids that even on a worst-case scenario reduce any subsidy required for 2007 they pull the plug. "This year's Pops would have cost significantly less than what has been paid out in previous years, and yet all three Lib-Dem members on the procurement panel voted to scrap the Pops this year." He added: "Council officers claimed that the Summer Pops provided a £4.7m boost to the local economy and that previous subsidies of £3m were justifiable, until this latest about face. "This is an absolute humiliation for the Lib-Dems and an embarrassment for all Liverpudlians just when we should be showcasing our talent in the lead-up to Capital of Culture." Labour leader Cllr Joe Ander-son said: "Last year, the Lib-Dems claimed the event would always require financial support, but that the benefits to the wider economy outweighed the council subsidy. It would now appear that the figures they gave me of £6 spent into the local economy for every £1 of council subsidy is no longer a decent return on the initial outlay as they argued last year." James Barton, Cream's chief executive, and one of the three bidders, said: "We're very shocked and surprised by the news the Pops may not go ahead and we want to do all we can to help save this year's event. We want to sit down with the city council and go through ways we believe the Pops can still be run successfully this year. We know there are budget constraints and we respect that, but this is Liverpool, it's a music city, and we don't want to see its big music festival lost off the calendar. "It would be a real disappointment for thousands of people if Liverpool was to lose the Pops, and we want to prevent that happening."
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