'They just wanted us out, plain and simple”.

And whenever Brenda Butler – former manager of the Cargo Shed arts collective on Dive Crescent – sees another cruise liner across the harbour, whenever she sees the empty Cargo Shed, she feels 'gutted”.

'We could have stayed in the Cargo Shed for another seven months because the work that was meant to start on the Dive Crescent seawall didn't start till last week.”

And while the shed sat idle, the cruise ships which brought a lot of tourist dollars to the arts collective came and went – 72 of them and about 11 more to see out the season . That's nearly 154,000 passengers, all potential Cargo Shed customers and their fat wallets. And not just them.

'What about all the tour buses? We had a promo going in 1,000 hotel and motel rooms in the city, a promo we couldn't cancel,” says Brenda. And she's still fielding calls from frustrated customers who find the shed closed.

'We are also trying to work out how much money the council lost by not having a tenant in the shed. It lost 10 per cent of our profits that we were charged – the rent, rates, power, water, cleaning and maintenance. The council didn't think it through properly.”

The council doesn't want to discuss that. Apparently its license to occupy agreements are confidential – even if there's no-one actually occupying the shed.

What upsets Brenda Butler and the arts collective even more is the council's now stating the works to fix a dangerous seawall originally planned for October 'were reviewed and scaled back”. And obviously delayed by several months.

'It's now an interim repair job to make sure it won't compromise any future development of the Dive Crescent area,” according to Tauranga City Council's Jaine Lovell-Gadd.

The collective is confused. The council says the arts market and its stall holders were advised last year that health and safety issues associated with the proposed seawall meant they would need to vacate the Cargo Shed. 'But,” says Brenda, 'when the works were delayed there were no health and safety issues and we could have stayed.”

At the same time they were offered the Cargo Shed on an hourly rate but stall holders would have been required 'to pack down their gear after each use” – in other words bring their stuff in at the beginning of the day and remove it at the end of each day.

'It was an offer that obviously wouldn't and couldn't work for stallholders. It was impracticable.” As were the other accommodation offers.

'And when it comes down to it we would have been happy to stay until the end of April and we could have planned from there. It's now clear there was no need for us to leave immediately.”

And all that income for the council and the stall holders lost.

Meanwhile the council has confirmed it's working with Land Information New Zealand on securing joint ownership with the Otamataha Trust for the Dive Crescent/Cargo Shed site. Once ownership is established the long term options will be worked out.

'Meanwhile the Cargo Shed is available for booking based on an hourly rate,” says Jaine Lovell-Gadd.

To date there's only been a short term booking for storage. 'We could have and should have been there for several more months.” Especially over the lucrative Christmas and cruise liner season.