Causeway Coast Marathon organisers ask Council to change ‘difficult’ fee charging system
Organisers of the Causeway Coast Marathon have requested changes to Causeway Council’s “difficult” fee charging system.
At a presentation to members, during a Land and Property Sub Committee meeting on Wednesday, June 5, event organiser Ian Cumming said the council’s current charging system, which takes ten percent of total revenue, makes the event unprofitable.
“The Causeway Coast Marathon is an event that I put together about 17 years ago,” Mr Cumming said. “It’s an annual event that sees around a thousand runners come to the north coast in September.
“It’s in the 17th year, and has grown up from about 250 to 300 participants up to what it is now deemed as one of the top running events in the UK, and has survived a number of challenges over the years as well.
“It also has a large charitable focus as well. We work closely with Cancer Focus, and they’re our official charity partner. We get quite a number of participants to take part in the event and raise money directly for Cancer Focus, as well as a lot of other charities that we never really find out about.
“Currently the charging system makes it quite difficult for us to work with, because it takes ten percent of the revenue from the event. That represents pretty much all that’s left over after we pay our bills.
“I’ve put together a projected Profit and Loss for this year’s event, based on the ten percent mechanism, and you’ll see it’s £416 which isn’t a lot of money.
“All our suppliers have been paid, the charity will have done quite well, and local suppliers on the grounds, from a tourism basis, all do quite well. But unfortunately the people that to put the work to administrate the event actually walk away with pushing nothing.
“I wanted to see if the council would look at a different way to charge us, basically a per person charge that allows us to make a profit from the event like any business needs to.”
Committee Chair, DUP Alderman Michelle Knight-McQuillan, told Mr Cummins that no decision on the issue could be made at the Land and Property Sub Committee as it is an open forum, but assured him that the issue “will be looked at again”.