Future of Wisbech’s hugely popular Rose Fair s hanging in the balance
The future of Wisbech Rose Fair – or a similar event – is hanging in the balance after a decision by the organiser’s of this year’s event to not go ahead with arranging it in 2024.
Now Wisbech Town Council is stepping in with plans to discuss what, if anything, can be done to provide the town with a Rose Fair-type event next summer.
The council’s events and festivals committee is due to hold an urgent meeting on October 9 at the request of the committee’s chair Councillor Sam Hoy.
Town clerk Terry Jordan said this year’s event, which was organised by The We Love Wisbech Partnership’s Rose Fair Committee, which was made up of a host of organisations including the the Ferry Project, CP Learning Trust, the Oasis community Centre, Clarion Futures, Blackfield Creatives, the NHS, Cambridgeshire Libraries, Cambridgeshire county council, Fenland District Council and Wisbech Town Council, was held over two weeks in July.
The idea was for organisations and groups to organise a flotilla of events between July 1 and 15 that could be packaged under the banner of Wisbech Rose Fair, which was celebrating its 60th anniversary this year.
There were also hopes for a walking parade, with Wisbech Round Table proposing to organise one instead of the usual parade of floats as the scaffolding on the burnt out building on the Market Place made that impossible.
However, a mountain of paperwork including health and safety risk assessments, made it an uphill task as the town has not had a walking parade before and it was decided it was too complicated in the timeframe available.
A dozen or so events were organised and held during the fortnight, but it did not include the hugely popular flower festival in St Peter’s Church, which ceased to be held in 2021 following a decision by the parochial church council that it was no longer possible to organise with a lack of enough young and able churchgoers to carry it on being blamed.
Mr Jordan said what the council will do is yet to be discussed with an open mind on what is possible.
However, he did suggest any event may even have a new name adding: “If you mention Rose Fair then people automatically think flowers and a parade, and without those two ingredients then they might be disappointed because it is not what they are used to.
“So we will have to consider carefully what we call the event, if councillors agree to take over running it.”
Keith Smith, director of the Ferry Project a leading member of the We Love Wisbech Rose Fair Committee, informed Mr Jordan of its decision in an email, stating: “The Rose Fair committee met today and as a result of feedback from last year it has been decided that the committee will not be taking forward a Rose Fair event this year. The website will be taken down.”
Mr Jordan said it was easy to sympathise as the group was trying to organise an event without any real budget, which made things very difficult. He added the town council will have to decide whether it wants to take on the mantle of the Rose Fair or a similar event, and also what that might look like as well as what the cost.
