FREMANTLE city council is refusing to reveal the identity of the distributor it hired to deliver heritage festival brochures.

The stonewalling follows complaints from the Fremantle Society—a co-organiser of the festival—that many of its members did not receive one.

The pamphlets were meant to be delivered to every letterbox in the municipality. Herald staffers living in Freo say they also never saw one.

“I am really disappointed because the irony is was a great brochure,” society president Henty Farrar told the Herald.

“What a shame it is that such a beautifully crafted program did not get to see very much the light of day, to say nothing of the awareness or attendance at the events by Freo people.

“Our money spent on creating the program was largely wasted because it was not distributed to the Fremantle citizenry.

“As event organisers, ‘we are not happy Jan’.”

Mayor Brad Pettitt reportedly admitted to society members June Hutchinson and Sophie Farrar there had been a glitch.

Mr Farrar believes it was more likely “old-fashioned incompetence” than anything else.

“Looking on the bright side, if you have one, it could become a collector’s item one day, hopefully not like the heritage festival itself.”

Dr Pettitt says the event was a huge success despite the mailout fiasco.

“That said, the City of Fremantle is looking at why not everyone [got one] and how we can improve this for next year.

“It may have been because in some places they didn’t deliver it to letterboxes with ‘no junk mail’ or possibly some small areas were missed.”

by BRENDAN FOSTER