OPPONENTS and supporters of the proposed Wellington Marine Education Centre are outraged.

Both groups, Save The Point Inc, and the Wellington Marine Conservation Trust, received no feedback from the Wellington City Council following a resource consent hearing for the proposed Wellington Marine Education Centre, which ended in a stalemate last week.

After one commissioner dropped out, the hearing reached a deadlock – two votes for and two votes against the Marine Education Centre’s resource consent.

"We’ve had no official notification of this (consent hearing result)," says Save The Point deputy chairman Nick Dryden.

"I have only heard through the media. That seems like one of the problems with the process."

Despite disagreeing with Dryden’s stance on the Marine Education Centre, the Wellington Marine Conservation Trust’s chairman Stuart Macaskill – who is pushing for the development of the Conservation Centre – is also annoyed with the way the WCC dealt with the stalemate.

"The council found they couldn’t come to a unanimous decision and now it (the hearing) has been abandoned with no feedback to us," says Macaskill.

"It’s a pretty difficult situation. After a week of hearing and presentation of evidence for it to be aborted in that way is unbelievable."

Wellington City Council spokesperson Simon Beattie says the groups were notified of the hearing result via letter on the day.

"There was a letter sent out to all submitters, and there were 101. So you are talking about a lot of people but all those involved in the process were alerted," Beattie says.

Meanwhile the four-week hearing will have to be redone much to the disgust of Dryden, of Save The Point, and Macaskill, of Wellington Marine Conservation Trust.

"Do we really have to face that (consent hearing) again? It seems like a ridiculous waste of time," Dryden says.

He says time and cost involved in organising another consent hearing could have been avoided if the chairman had the deciding vote.

Beattie, of WCC, says one commissioner left "due to the length of the hearing".

"It was felt at the time that there were so many people involved and a date had been set that it was deemed appropriate to still hold the hearing on the day."

Unhappy that the hearing went through despite a possible stalemate with an even number of commissioners voting, Macaskill asks why the chairman did not have a deciding vote.

"We have to appoint new commissioners and go through the whole thing again to reach a decision. We need to ask the city why they signed off having four commissioners.

"You have to ask why the chairman was left without a casting vote?" Macaskill says.

Beattie says he does not know why the chairman did not have the casting vote.

"I’m not sure if it is common process or not. My understanding was there was no casting vote in regards to this hearing."

The new hearing for the proposed Marine Education Centre will begin in up to two months time, Beattie says.