Opinion: Red tape and time halt Wisbech Rose Fair parade

Wisbech Rose Fair will go ahead this year – but once again it will be missing the hugely popular parade.

Logistics have made it impossible for the group of volunteers to get all the paperwork in order so that one could go ahead.

After the disappointment of the past three years when the Rose Fair has been cancelled firstly for covid and then because of a fire, which left scaffolding around a building on the Market Place blocking the usual parade route, there were high hopes one would be held this year.

But once again it is not to be, it is such a shame because the volunteers, who dedicate hours to organising the event for the townspeople to enjoy, have tried their best.

However, the change from having floats to a walking parade (which is what was being planned) meant a host of health and safety red tape needed to get ticked off, including, would you believe it? A risk assessment of a possible terrorist attack.

Now I’m not poo-pooing the need for some sort of health and safety provision, you need to be able to ensure crowds of people watching and those participating will be safe.

But really, a terrorism risk assessment? No wonder it is so time consuming for the poor volunteers having to fill in all the forms on what they will do in this or that emergency, and whether they have looked at every possible scenario.

Personally I wouldn’t know where to begin to determine what the likelihood of a terrorist attack is in Wisbech (at a guess I would say low), and if it is deemed likely, what plans could possibly be put in place to mitigate against such as possibility – other than the blooming obvious: up the police presence, have CCTV properly monitored and ask the public to be extra vigilant.

Not sure whether the first two are even viable given the number of complaints at a lack of police visibility in our area, and as for monitoring of CCTV, again there is not a great track record of that happening either juding by some of the complaints that have been reported on in the past.

The public, I’m sure could be relied on to do their bit, because they always do.

Is it any wonder getting these documents signed off as acceptable is so time consuming?And why it has been impossible to get it all in order in time for this year’s parade.

However, all is not lost in the 60th anniversary year, the We Love Wisbech partnership, which has taken up the organising of the Rose Fair after a decsion last year by St Peter’s Church to no longer run it, have not been idle.

The partnership has galvanised a host of organisations into holding various events over two weeks from July 1 to 15, which will fall under the umbrella of Rose Fair and will include a public survey where people can have their say on what Rose Fair means to them, what they have loved over the years, and what they would like to see in the future.

Hopefully the people of Wisbech will get involved in this as it will shape the future of the Rose Fair, and likely determine whether or not it is viable for it to even continue.

So if you love the Rose Fair make sure you get out there and have your say…

Some joker has decided to paint one particularly large pot hole on a Fenland road yellow and add massive arrows and warning signs pointing to the “big hole here”.

I must admit it brought a smile to my face, and it also tickled the national press too as they featured the images of the yellow peril warning in a number of their publications.

It was a brilliant stunt, obviously by someone utterly fed up with having to circumnavigate such a pot hole, and I can’t but help admire their actions.

I would suggest, given the dire state of most our local roads, that we all grab a paint brush and get out there and do the same.

However, I’m not convinced there is enough yellow paint in the world to highlight every pot hole currently littering Fenland’s roads.

But just maybe this one person’s spirited action will some how inspire the powers that be to up their response to the current situation and get our roads properly sorted instead of throwing poorly carried out and often apparently random patches here and there – we can but hope…

And finally isn’t wonderful to finally have some sunshine – let’s hope it’s the start of a long hot summer – especially for all those who will be staycationing rather than jetting off to warmer climes.

There really is no where quite so lovely as Britain in the summer, if the sun shines – of course if it doesn’t being British we know how to make the best of things, but it would be nice, if we didn’t have to…