Nantwich Food Festival committee members warned tonight that next year’s festival may not go ahead.
It has emerged that a long term agreement with Cheshire East Council to use two main car parks in the town for free during the festival has come to an end.
And committee members told Nantwich Town councillors that despite requests to continue the agreement, cash-strapped Cheshire East has so far not responded.
The festival largely takes place on Love Lane and Bowling Green car parks in the town.
It attracts tens of thousands of visitors every year – and organisers said this year’s was probably the biggest yet.
Chair of the festival Christine Farrall added: “We’ve had the agreement with Cheshire East on the free use of the car parks for us to set up the main marquees.
“That agreement has finished.
“We have exhibitors now contacting us, lined up to pay, but we can’t go any further with this until we know where we stand with these two car parks.
“If we don’t have these carparks, there will be no festival.”
Committee members fear that Cheshire East may charge for the use of the car parks over the three-day event, which organisers say would cost too much.
John Coulter, festival committee member, added: “If they do decide to charge us, we might be able to afford one, but we could not afford both.
“It’s a big worry. We are non profit, everything we earn we give back to the event.”
He said the festival already faces higher costs due to the need to improve recycling and sustainability and having to bring in better marquee structures.
Town Cllr Geoff Smith said: “It would be travesty if we lost the festival, it is a magnificent event – a diamond for this town.
“The amount of footfall we’ve had and personally as a town councillor we will do everything we can to support the festival team.”
Fellow Town Cllr Arthur Moran, who also represents Nantwich North in Cheshire East, said: “Cheshire East is in a really serious financial position.
“We will try and see what we can do and will definitely raise this with them.”
Cllr John Priest added: “I think it would be chirlish of Cheshire East if they are just missing car parking charges for three days. We will take this up as soon as possible.”
Mr Coulter thanked the council for the annual grant it provides to help the festival go ahead.
He said the Friday of this year’s event was the busiest ever, and there were more than 200 exhibitors in total over the three days.
Councillor Michael Gorman, chair of Cheshire East Council’s economy and growth committee, said: “The council is currently in the process of reviewing arrangements and analysing information with regard to previous festivals, to inform discussions about future options.
“At this stage we welcome all feedback and suggestions.”
The FF generates footfall. Some is transient some is sticky. The questions that need asking and the approach in my opinion should be:
1. Does a FF bring the right type of footfall to Nantwich and the local area?
2. Can the town and it’s facilities cope?
3. Can the TC, local business and people profit?
4. Are negative implications minimal and mitigations available?
If the answer to these four is yes (which is my view). Then what is everyone doing to maximise success:
A. What are the TC doing to facilitate e.g. releasing a car park or two
B. What special licences and advice is being given to the local community to ensure all can benefit.
– the TC could take a lead here and reach out to the community to ask for feedback but also have a view on driving the town forward. “We have this wonderful opportunity that will generate lots of footfall, what help do you need? What issues do you foresee?”
C. What is the FF doing to ensure local business can take part. How is it sharing ots obvious success.
D. What are local businesses doing to stand out and grow as a result of the sticky footfall.
Asking a businesses how it “feels” about an event is the wrong approach. Also a FF is not the panacea to high street woes that nearly all UK towns face. That is a much bigger problem, linked to: online shopping, big business, globalisation, successive governments abanding plans, etc. However a FF can do its bit for one week, roughly 2% of a year. The other 98% is for everyone else to figure out. 52 FF a year is obviously not the answer either.
Why can’t the TC be open and publish its criteria for approving events and be responsive on its concerns when asked to approve them. Then the FF, businesses and people can have their say. There will always be Nimby types who pipe up but the TC should be able to sift through that and assist in doing the right thing.
This is a huge opportunity don’t miss it. I dispare at local officials that dont help. They work for us!
My point is provide financial evidence that the FF generates net profit for Nantwich, and involve our local businesses who trade in Nantwich 52 weeks of the year in the discussion. The hype around attracting visitors is well made but what is unclear is the impact and providing tangible evidnce will help an informed decisions to be made. I suspect many of our local businesses will know the impact on their own businesses during the time of the FF and perhaps this is a good place to start. We are seeing many closed buildings in Nantwich, if it comes to a choice a FF or vibrant town centre what would people choose
This would be a travesty. Short-term gain of revenue for CEC for a long-term loss of footfall and goodwill for our town.
The food festival is a wonderful, family-friendly event that brings visitors and business into the town. It would be a huge loss. I urge any councillors reading this to push for an new agreement with the festival committee as a priority.
It’s really simple: this event generates income and interest in the town. All other car parks, hotels, bars, shops will be full as a result. The town, the people and the council win from this. Some is more tangible than others but the balance is for sure a real benefit to all. I would ask for the criteria on how the council do business cases. That will reveal how stupid they are or how to give them the information they need to approve. However I assume they have stupid ways of measuring success.
Why should they have the car parks for free. Cheshire east should charge them and put the proceeds back into local council funds.
Make the smallholders pay more to exhibit. The exorbitant price they charge for food should more than cover it.
Too many people trying to make a quick profit and as usual not wanting to pay for it, while local residents suffer the consequences.
Move it to the barony park or reaseheath
This festival used to be on mill island, there is plenty of room there for stands, and if the stands continued from the town to the site via the two roads out by the Welsh row bridge it could be even bigger the pathway there is also very wide for stalls too
@JCD: You make a good point, and perhaps we’ll never know the net fiscal gain (or loss) – especially not long-term.
The Nantwich Food Festival is getting so busy, it risks becoming a victim of its own success. A number of exhibitors/vendors keep coming back year-after-year, so it must be worth it for them, either directly or indirectly. Some local businesses may suffer over the weekend, but others will do well.
The event is so well attended, with visitors coming from far and wide, so it’s almost unfeasible to suggest that this won’t bring a great long-term benefit to the town. It’s brilliant PR for Nantwich, and long may it continue.
I’d hope that with the organisers, CEC and the exhibitors/vendors would agree to shaving a point or two off their margins in order to keep the Food Festival viable. CEC should look at the wider benefits of the event rather than trying to recoup the two car parks’ lost revenue for the weekend, (let alone charging the event organisers to use them). No doubt the exhibitors/vendors would push back at the suggestion of having to pay higher costs, but they can vote with their feet (but most probably won’t).
Of course without the contribution of all the amazing volunteers, the Nantwich Food Festival would curl-up and die – and CEC should be immensely grateful for their generosity and hard work (and would be unwise to look a gift horse in the mouth).
What’s the gain for jazz fest which costs more?
Food fest is a marketing event for the town imo
JCD. I really don’t think that’s the point. The festival is three days of good natured fun, entertainment and food for many thousands of people.
This year particularly, with the weather, the whole thing was magnificent, and I really can’t agree with any of your points.
Does some profit for out-of-town businesses affect people’ s enjoyment? Would you want the Jazz Festival to play only jazz?
I would say the vast majority eat as well as drink, and I saw no drunkenness at all. Why is financial gain important when the town puts on one of the best events for many miles around, and the idea of people if Nantwich subsidising others is ridiculous.
Maybe stay home next year, then you can avoid causing any detrimental effect. I’ll be there with fine food and drink, great entertainment and a beautiful atmosphere.
How do local businesses in Nantwich feel about this. The FF attracts lots of people but how much do they spend with local businesses (particularly those selling food) during the festival. I ask as the FF has become more of a “drink” festival and selling non food produce. In short what is the net fiscal gain for the people in Nantwich or are the people of Nantwich subsidising others ( surely CE can evidence this )