ORGANISERS of major events like Buckley Jubilee will need to raise extra money to cover the cost of traffic management and road closures after Flintshire County Council laid out new charges.
Flintshire’s Chief Officer for Streetscene and Transportation Katie Wilby has presented her department’s cost recovery plan to councillors on the Environment and Economic Overview and Scrutiny Committee.
It details how the council will charge event organisers for staffing, traffic management and road closures required to hold events. Previously the council has covered these costs itself, however that budget was taken away in April.
Annually staffing and traffic management for events costs the authority more than £22,000 – money that the Streetscene and Transportation Department now needs to recoup to hit savings targets.
Councillors were assured that under the scheme remembrance parades would remain exempt from the new fees. However major civic events would not.
“What about important events locally like the Buckley Jubilee,” said Buckley Pentrobin councillor Mike Peers. “It’s been arranged for 150 years by all the churches in the town and the town council pay a contribution to put the bunting up. This could impact upon that.”
“Unfortunately that type of event would be subject to this policy,” said Ms Wilby. “We can’t sustain the cost of providing that free of charge so yes, we would be looking for contribution from the town or community council to recover the costs.
“That would be the same across the county, I know Holywell run their own day as well so we’d have to do that to be fair and consistent with everyone.”
Under the proposals organisers of large events that impact the highway like Civic Sundays and food and drink festivals will face charges to cover additional staffing and traffic management.
“There are organisations like the scouts, who on St George’s Day often have a service for the whole county at Mold Parish Church and they very often march though the town,” said Cllr Chris Bithell. “I’m not sure if that would fall under this policy.
“Similarly the granting of the freedom of the county to the Royal Welch Fusiliers and they can exercise their freedom to march with bayonets fixed and pipes playing when they wish as part of the freedom that was granted. There have been other occasions like celebrating VE Day or VJ Day, I’m not sure where they would fit in.”
But Ms Wilby was adamant that the current situation could not continue.
“We are currently supporting 30 events a year with no budget,” she said. “We have to draw the line somewhere.
“We recognise that having a well-managed, safe event can bring a lot of benefit to the local communities. Our involvement comes in many forms, from road closures and setting out traffic management to hosting events on car parks, we’ll often do grass cutting prior to events in the summer and we also deal with waste disposal costs and litter picking.
“In the past we’ve also provided some transport for events. We can’t sustain that level of cost. The budget was taken at the beginning of year so it’s gone now.
“We’re not intending to recover costs from national commemorative events like Remembrance Day, so we would still support those types of events. This would only apply to large events. We won’t charge for charities or small street parties on a cul-de-sac or with less than 50 vehicles.”
As an example the committee was told that a three-hour event which required the closure of the B5121 Greenfield Street between Holywell and Greenfield on a weekend would cost event organisers £344.91, to cover the cost of two members of Street Scene staff and a supervisor.
There will also be charges for utilising car parks for events.
Event organisers will now need to complete full risk assessments including with reference to traffic, programme of works and method statements, full consultation with Flintshire’s road space manager to ensure a road can be temporarily closed and provide public liability to the value of £10m.
