"What happened to natural justice?" asks Save the Point deputy chairman Nick Dryden in response to the Wellington City Council’s latest proposal in the Marine Education Centre debacle.

"ARE they (WCC) in there to totally support the developers or are they here to represent the people?" Dryden says.

Following the Marine Education Centre resource consent application that resulted in the commissioners unable to reach a decision, the Wellington City Council have proposed to part-fund the developers of the Marine Education Centre should the group not have sufficient cash funds during the second hearing.

The proposed WCC "guarantee" for up to $200,000 to the Wellington Marine Conservation Trust will be discussed at the Strategy and Policy Committee on May 11.

Dryden says it is unfair that the council fund the Wellington Marine Conservation Trust when Save The Point Inc are then forced to go to the community to raise money to resubmit their case at the second hearing.

Wellington Marine Conservation Trust submitted a new application for resource consent to construct the Marine Education Centre this week.

"How is that democratic?

"They are just trying to bleed us dry out here. Well they have a long way to go because we are bloody determined lot out here."

Dryden compares the new application for resource consent to trialling a court case twice.

"If you don’t get the right answers from the jury the first time you get to pick another jury and try again and fix up your evidence a bit. It’s not really fair. What happened to natural justice? I think it is disgusting," Dryden says.

However Andy Foster, Strategy and Policy Committee councillor, says it is not unfair that the council – that appoints the commissioners who decide whether the centre goes ahead or not – part-fund the developers and not the opposition in the second hearing.

"We didn’t support Save The Point in the first place so I don’t really see what the difference is.

"The obvious reason (for the $200,000 proposal) is we support the Marine Education Centre to date and we have a most unusual situation with a hearing that has given a non-result. So we have to make a decision as to whether they need additional resources," Foster says.

Meanwhile the Environment Court has not yet ruled as to whether it accepts Save The Point Inc’s application that the first hearing was declined under the Local Government Act 2002 and that one of the commissioners was biased and should be retrospectively voted off.