Wilmslow Town Council has declined a grant application to support one of the town's largest and most established annual events, much to the shock and surprise of the organisers.
Councillors discussed a joint grant application from the Wilmslow Show and Musical Festival, which is being integrated into the show this year, for £5250. This is a similar amount to the combined grants awarded to the two events which were held separately in 2013.
However councillors voted at their meeting on Tuesday, 22nd April (by 5 votes to 4) to reject the application because it lacked detail about what the money would be spent on and the accounts showed that Wilmslow Show Ltd had assets of £11,579.
Cllr Ruth McNulty said "I'm very disappointed by the content of this application, not least for the second year running it is silent of the ways in which the show committee would want to spend the money and this year it is a substantial amount of money they are asking for.
"To my mind, there is a strong indication that this grant application is simply to enhance their funds and the accounts show they've already got substantial funds. I'm very nervous about giving more money to this organisation which appears to be well able to finance its own show, particularly as grant monies are so limited this year."
Cllr Adrian Bradley added "We should be able to ask any applicant what are you going to be able to do better or extra to what you have done before you received this grant. That to me is a very fair and sound question which any applicant should be proud to answer. If they can't even come to the meeting in the first place then I find it difficult to form a positive view on this proposal in this meeting."
Wilmslow Town Council has £25,000 available this financial year for new grant applications.
Cllr Phil Enstone commented "I'm really concerned about this surplus they've got. They have got a substantial amount here and we've only got £25,000."
Frank McCarthy, Chairman of the Wilmslow Show, said "We were very shocked and surprised to hear the news that the Wilmslow Town Council was not prepared to continue their support for the town's annual show. The Council quite rightly supports many things in our town, including helping commercial enterprises, so we did hope that it would also support the town's own show run by local volunteers for the people of Wilmslow.
"We have been told that things might have been different if we had attended the meeting - we certainly would have, had we only known when it was to be discussed. In the recent past, the show came very close to closing due to lack of finance - a fate suffered by so many local shows around the country. It was the foresight of our then council, Macclesfield Borough Council, which came to the rescue with grants over several years. This enabled us to build up a reserve, ensuring the future of the show.
"You cannot run a show without financial reserves - how could we book the marquees, costing well over £4000 if we didn't have the money in the bank to pay for them? We welcomed the formation of the Town Council, which we felt would be even closer to local organisations such as the show and even regard it as their own. We therefore find it very disappointing that they have decided not to help this year and sincerely hope they will find it possible to do so in the future. We send our thanks to the four councillors who did support our Show."
Wilmslow Show is organised every year by a small group of volunteers and it cost just under £27,000 to stage last year's show. Now in its 102nd year, the combined Wilmslow Show and Music Festival will take place on Sunday 13th July. Their grant application was for £5250 for 2014 and £5250 for 2015.
Councillors pointed out at the meeting that Wilmslow Town Council's grant last year was to cover the Dakota flypast that didn't happen and also that Wilmslow Town Show are welcome to submit a revised grant application.
Wilmslow Town Council also refused a grant application from Redeeming Our Communities (ROC) for £10,950.
The money was requested to set up two new projects for Wilmslow, based on other projects they deliver elsewhere. Firstly ROC Cafe Youth Project to be based at Wilmslow High School and ROC Care aimed at elderly people in the Colshaw Farm area.
ROC have been invited to support a summer school in August for incoming Year 6 students at Wilmslow High and in September they plan to open a weekly after school club, ROC Cafe, to provide a variety of supervised activities. Whilst ROC Care will provide trained volunteers to offer a befriending scheme for older people and a variety of activities to alleviate loneliness and isolation.
Whilst opinions were varied amongst the councillors, the overall feeling was there were already groups doing similar work in the area and that no specific need for this project had been identified in Wilmslow.
Comments
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If the grant was to pay for the abandoned fly pass last year surely the funds should be rolled over to this year?
That said, WTC did manage to find funds for rabbit hutches and a shooting club that isn't even in Wilmslow, so I can understand why some will think it is a perverse decision.
The Wilmslow Rifle Club meets at:
391 (Wilmslow) Squadron ATC,
off Dean Drive,
Wilmslow,
SK9 2EY.
I can confirm that this IS in the civil parish of Wilmslow. I was at the Town Council Meeting where its application was discussed. The application was for funding specifically to make the shooting range accessible to shooters who can only compete from the sitting position (i.e. people with a mobility restriction).
1) The club meets in the civil parish of Wilmslow
2) Their application met the grant criteria and was awarded following a majority vote of Councillors who were democratically elected.
If it had not met either criteria then it would not have been awarded.