Memorandum by the Showmen's Guild of Great
Britain, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Mid & South Lincolnshire
Section (TF 28)
In response to the press notice dated 21 December
1999, in connection with Travelling Fairs the Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire,
Mid and South Lincolnshire Section of the Showmen's Guild of Great
Britain offer the following views and concerns on the items listed
in the press notice in particular, and the position in general.
In order to assist you in putting together the
responses, we have made our comments under the headings that were
given in the press notice.
THE CONTINUED
VALUE OF
HISTORIC TRAVELLING
FAIRS
We very genuinely and sincerely believe that
the travelling fair is an important part of our heritage and of
the general public's heritage in this country and it is vital
therefore that this unique form of entertainment is allowed to
continue to thrive. During the mid-summer about 200 fairs will
be taking place at the same time on sites all over the country.
It is a pleasant surprise to us to find that
whilst there have been many changes in the pattern of fairs and
the numbers attending have definitely dwindled over recent years,
the annual fair in the town or village still has a unique attraction
and is eagerly awaited by the community. In these days of the
many alternatives available such as theme parks etc we have thought
about the situation and have put it down to the fact that uniquely
we take our entertainment to the public where they live. What
this achieves is that the fairground is available to everyone
in the community on their doorstep whether or not they have the
means to travel to these other attractions. Therefore because
we can provide this unique opportunity it is vital that we are
able to continue to do so whilst the general public wants to enjoy
all the fun of the fair.
We have moved with the times and are constantly
increasing the range and quality of fairground rides and other
attractions that we are taking around the country to the people.
Through our efforts we are continuing to survive, providing our
age-old service in the face of stiff competition from attractions
such as Alton Towers etc. It is vital to us therefore that we
do not have other obstacles put in our way and we really need
the co-operation and assistance of the organisations that we have
to deal with to provide fairs, particularly local authorities.
It might interest the Sub-committee to know
that we feel as a community that the motor-car is the single thing
that has had the greatest effect on our business. This is not
only because the ready availability of cars to virtually every
family lets them travel to the other attractions but simply because
the amount of traffic on the roads and the fear of congestion
etc being created has led local authorities to form the view that
the fair can no longer be accommodated on its traditional site
because it may lead to traffic congestion etc. Also, because of
the emphasis on the importance of the motor car we are now faced
with the situation, in many instances, where we have traditionally
occupied sites that are usually used for car parking, where local
authorities insist on charging not only the usual ground rental
but, on top of that, the anticipated lost revenue from the car
park being out of action for the duration of the fair!
The Sub-committee should also be aware that
by virtue of our membership of the Showmen's Guild we automatically
accept that the whole of our daily life, both when undertaking
our business on the fairground and in our day-to-day life off
of it, a very strict disciplinary regime ensures the highest level
of conduct by ourselves and the whole of our families, who we
are personally responsible for. We are very proud of the way of
life this results in and it is also important therefore to the
survival of the set of values which we have adopted that the tradition
of travelling fairs is allowed to continue as that forms the starting
point around which we have built the pattern of how our community
conducts itself in its day-to-day dealings with other members
and with the community at large.
THE PROVISION
OF SITES
FOR TRAVELLING
FAIRS
Apart from a loss of traditional fairgrounds
for development etc the other major problem that we face is the
very poor standard of the fairground sites that we are forced
to continue to use particularly in terms of the surfacing and
of the level of amenities available to enable us to live on site
whilst we are undertaking our business.
The most unfortunate situation in our experience
is that travelling fairs are always the facility that has to make
way for other things and are given the least consideration and
importance. It is also the case however, ironically, that even
though the needs of travelling fairs appear to be given the very
lowest priority, local authorities seem to view them as an easy
target for raising revenue by charging very inflated rentals etc.
Furthermore it does not seem right to our members that whilst
councils are more than willing to pay for other recreational events
and attractions to visit their areas we receive no help and indeed
are obliged to pay large rents just for the privilege of bringing
entertainment to the area.
A good example of both of these problems is
the Nottingham Goose Fair which is one of the two largest annual
travelling fairs in the country and is probably the best known
one.
Part of the site where this historic fair has
been held for hundreds of years is to be taken to accommodate
the station for the proposed rapid light transit system. Whilst
that proposal itself will not cause too many problems for the
continued operation of the fair, in order to construct it a large
compound is to be erected in the middle of the area that the fair
occupies and is to stay in place for three or four years. Although
alternative sites are being offered to the usual occupants and
they will eventually have their original pitches returned to them,
it will be disruptive to the fair for that period and as other
alternative sites for the compound appear to be available it is
annoying to our members that the site should be chosen with little
regard to the strong tradition of this historic fair. It is also
the case that last year the Goose Fair was in danger of not taking
place because, for a short period of time, the Guild had invoked
one of its rules to declare the fair "out of order"
such that all members would have been debarred from attending
it, because of the wholly disproportionate (22 per cent) rise
in rentals the council requested without any consultation or negotiation
with the Guild and its members. The situation was eventually resolved
by the agreement of a much more modest rent rise, in line with
inflation, but it was typical of the lack of regard which has
held for the strong tradition of the travelling fair. We are constantly
facing the problem of local councils altering details such as
the dates and times of annual fairs to suit themselves with no
consultation with us or consideration of our requirements. They
do not appear to grasp the importance of the timing and relationship
of the traditional pattern of fairs which we attend and the need
for our community to be aware of such details and to be able to
rely on them on a year to year basis in order to plan our movements
and a round of events which we can realistically attend taking
account of the fact that most often between fairs we have nowhere
else to go and it is no longer acceptable or realistic to park
in lay-bys etc.
THE PARTICULAR
NEEDS OF
TRAVELLING SHOWPEOPLE
IN CARRYING
OUT THEIR
TRADE
The Sub-committee may be most surprised to
learn that in carrying out our business we are usually denied
basic facilities which the general public take for granted and
indeed consider to be a human right in this day and age. We are
not talking about sophisticated facilities but basic supplies
of electricity and water so that we can live a normal life when
living on fairgrounds in order to undertake our trade.
Over the region which we travel there are only
two fairgrounds which have a permanent electricity supply that
we can plug into to serve our caravans whilst living there and
most sites do not even have a water supply. The result is generally
that we have to "go begging" to members of the public
close to fairgrounds to seek their help in making a connection
to their electricity supply for our caravans, for which of course
we pay them, usually much more than for the amount we use. We
cannot think of any other sector of society who is forced to live
in this way and is denied such basic human rights.
We want to emphasise that we are not asking
for charity and will always want to pay for such services but
need the co-operation of the service providers and of local authorities
making such facilities available to us, as it is usually the case
that they do not consider our use of such sites to be sufficiently
permanent to warrant the connection of such supplies. One case
which comes to mind is an annual fair held in a market place in
the middle of a town where there is a number of electricity sub
stations etc all around it but we are still obliged to rely on
the co-operation of local householders in allowing us to connect
to their supplies. In another instance where a two week fair is
held both in the Spring and Autumn, after many many years of requesting
the council to connect such supplies three of our members ended
up funding the operation to make the connections themselves. That
is not a problem in itself but all too often there is simply no
willingness to allow us to help ourselves.
THE EFFECTIVENESS
OF EXISTING
PLANNING GUIDANCE
ON THE
PROVISION OF
QUARTERS FOR
TRAVELLING SHOWPEOPLE
Whilst this section of the Guild is fortunate
in having been able to achieve, via our agents who are a specialist
consultancy in dealing with the needs of travelling showpeople
in the planning system, the first permanent Accommodation Park
in the country that site is now full to capacity whilst there
is still a great unsatisfied demand for accommodation sites.
This is constantly the case because of a combination
of the loss of traditional accommodation sites, the increase in
the size of fairground rides and the sub division of families
as children grow and create their own family units with their
own accommodation needs and their own equipment and there is a
need for a continuing supply of accommodation sites.
The particular problems of keeping groups together
as it is the traditional lifestyle that showpeople remain in family
groups etc often with three generations living together on the
same plots and of finding suitable locations for the accommodation
of caravans to live in and space to stand, assemble and test our
rides etc as we are obliged to do by law, are well known. The
problem is that we don't fit neatly into categories such as housing
or industrial areas and we are usually simply not able to afford
the price which is required for land in urban areas although we
need to be close to them so that we have medical facilities etc
available to us and our children can attend local schools on a
regular basis. All too often therefore we are obliged to consider
sites on the fringe of towns or just in the countryside and "normal"
planning policies seem to rule us out in getting planning permission
for such locations.
Although we know that a local planning authority
should take account of our needs and make provision in terms of
being prepared to grant planning permission for appropriate sites
that we do not want to have provided to us but wish to purchase
and develop ourselves, many of the councils in our area don't
take this responsibility seriously and with the exception of a
small number of authorities who have been supportive, our members
seem to have to struggle and fight, at considerable cost, to achieve
what should be their basic right to have somewhere to live
We are of course aware that as a result of very
considerable effort by the Showmen's Guild and its members eventually
circular 22/91 was published and for the first time brought to
the attention of local councils the desperate plight of travelling
showpeople. The problem seems to be that whilst it was still "fresh
news" in the early 1990s the importance of the message now
seems to have faded and local councils are not taking enough notice
of it whilst during the same period the need for accommodation
sites has grown.
WHETHER ANY
ACTION IS
NECESSARY TO
ENSURE THAT
APPROPRIATE REGARD
IS HAD
TO THE
NEEDS OF
TRAVELLING SHOWPEOPLE
WITHIN THE
PLANNING SYSTEM
Our view is quite simply that circular 22/91
put in place a basic means for the rights of travelling showpeople
to be recognised and for local councils to be responsible for
assisting them, but the importance of our problems has been allowed
to fade.
We do think therefore that there is an important
need for the government to look urgently and seriously at whether
or not the very worthy intentions of the circular are being achieved
and if they are not, which we believe to be the case, to review
and update its advice and, more particularly, to hammer home to
local authorities their responsibilities and to make sure that
they recognise and fulfil them.
Because of the close-knit nature of our community
and the excellent lines of communication which are established
within it we are aware that there is now a lot of experience of
the way in which the planning system has performed and operated
in meeting our needs which can be drawn upon to provide guidance
on where it has failed to do so and how it can be improved. This
is an exercise which we believe needs to be urgently undertaken
through liaison with the small number of agencies that deal with
our specialist needs across the country.
Any other matters which may arise in the course
of questioning
There are a small number of other matters which
we would like to bring up, as follows:
1. The first is a financial one as we understand
that we are working in an unfair situation in comparison to showmen
in other European countries in relation to the charging of VAT
at the standard rate. We understand that there are preferential
rates for showmen in other countries, and if this is the case
we should benefit from the same provisions.
2. It is the general tendency of local authorities
to simply impose, as we have previously discussed, changes such
as increases in rentals and alteration of dates of fairs without
any consultation with us and in order to achieve fair play a confrontation
has needed to occur. Often this occurs simply because these changes
are suggested by officials who have no knowledge of the way we
conduct our business and the situation would be far easier if
there was a proper means of consultation with us. We are aware
that councils will soon be obliged to operate `best value' and
we hope that this will result in a much better relationship between
them and us as their customers.
3. Our final grievance is one that is long
standing and not easy to deal with as it is simply the continuing
problem of the ignorance of our lifestyle resulting in prejudice
against us and a tendency to associate us with entirely different
groups of travellers and to "tar us all with the same brush".
We appreciate however this is not a problem which can be resolved
by legislation but only by reliance on education and feel it is
particularly important therefore that at least local authorities
who we deal with extensively and rely on to be able to undertake
our business are aware of our problems and supportive of our needs.
We trust that all of these comments will be
of assistance to the Sub-committee and request that they are taken
fully into account in this inquiry.
James Mellors
Chairman
On behalf of the Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire,
Mid and South Lincolnshire Section of the Showmen's Guild of Great
Britain
February 2000
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