THE director of the Su Casa Festival controversially moved from a venue in Conwy to one in Liverpool has spoken out amid confusion surrounding the event.

Trading Standards are said to be looking into the Su Casa and Party in the Park festivals, which were both set for Y Morfa Stadium on June 26 and 27, but have since been moved to the Invisible Wind Factory in Liverpool and the Tivoli Nightclub in Buckley respectively.

The move has sparked anger from ticketholders, some of whom had booked hotels in the Conwy area in preparation for the events and are claiming that they are finding refunds hard to come by.

However, Dale Rankmore, who is the director of the Su Casa Festival has hit back at those claims, stating that "refunds have been offered since the start".

Talking about whether or not the two festivals are linked to one another, he added: "Firstly, I am the sole owner of Moko Collect and the brand Su Casa Festival . Party At The Park is owned by Red Shark Promotions (formally Climax Promotions) by Mark Hopkins and Adam Gore.

"Redshark promotions entered into an agreement with us to be our financial backers and partners for Su Casa and it was then decided jointly that Party in the Park, which is operated by them, would be a great event to bring to North Wales.

"We chose to work with Y Morfa Stadium after many assurances that the relevant licence was in place at the venue. After signing a contract with the venue and requesting on multiple occasions a copy of the licence we found out it wasn’t suitable for our needs."

Mr Rankmore added that a new licence application was then needed and that this was done "behind his back" whilst he was away in another country.

"That was despite me pleading with the company to show me this document before it was sent off," he said.

"Whilst applying for the licence there was conditions we needed to meet and information and documents needed. During this planning process, I started to notice key errors, which I believed would lead to the licence not being granted.

"I was vocal of these issues and asked for them to be rectified, however documents were submitted that were missing key information. This lead to the licence receiving objections - and being taken to a hearing mainly due to resident complaints about noise and crowd management.

"Conwy Council worked with us extremely fairly and it was and still is my firm belief that, with their help, this event would still have been granted a licence but Red Shark pushed a venue change on us that we didn’t want to happen.

"At this point we decided to part ways, I would continue with my event Su Casa Festival and they would continue with their Party At The Park.

"This is a very unfortunate situation, for ourselves and mainly for all the customers of both events as they now have been let down and for that we can only apologise."

A spokesman for Conwy Borough FC rejected Mr Rankmore's comments, saying: "When were approached by Su Casa about using Y Morfa for the festival on 26 and 27 July it was made clear and agreed from the outset that it was their responsibility to obtain permission for the event from our landlord, Conwy Borough County Council and also to obtain all necessary licences and conditions for the event.

"Any suggestion that we represented that we had a licence suitable for a two day music festival is totally rejected. When we became aware that tickets were being sold for the event but that Su Casa had not sought the necessary permissions or licences from the council we were extremely concerned as this was not in keeping with the terms of our agreement.

"It was at our insistence that the organisers then sought to comply with the necessary licensing and permission processes. We understand that there were some local objections and that there were concerns that this may ultimately have impacted on the granting of the required licences and permissions.

"Also, despite the venue having been inspected and deemed suitable by Su Casa, the production company that they retained raised concerns about the adequacy of the power supply at Y Morfa and also that there was a perimeter fence around the pitch that would have caused issues with health and safety compliance in the event of an emergency evacuation - we believe that these may have been factors that led to the switch of venue.

"The football club was not involved in marketing and ticketing arrangements and enquiries in that regard should be directed to Su Casa.”

This week, it was revealed that both organisers did not have a licence in place before selling tickets on behalf of the events.

Conwy Council 's Licensing and Trading Standards team said that while an application for a licence was received, it had not yet been granted.

The council said the two music events were being treated as one, with the same company and person requesting a single open-ended licence starting on July 25 which would cover both.

A trading standards and Licensing spokesman added: "We are aware of complaints region-wide and beyond regarding the two planned events and were are investigating."We urge anyone who wishes to raise a complaint to do so via Citizen's Advice Online which will ensure complaints from all regions will be collated."