Summer festivals, procession, gala days and beer festival are all casualties of pandemic
gala days and summer festivals across West Lothian are already being hit as the county reacts to the spread of coronavirus.
Bathgate’s John Newland Festival and procession was one of the latest events to be cancelled after the organisers of the West Lothian Highland games said last week that it would not go ahead.
Whitburn gala Day has been postponed, as has armadale gala. organisers hope to hold them in september instead.
Livingston round table has also made the decision to cancel their 2020 Beer Festival, which every year raises a substantial amount of money for local good causes.
the threat to gala days and other popular events was discussed by councillors at a recent Voluntary organisations policy Development and scrutiny panel(pDsp).
Dougie grierson, regeneration team leader, told the meeting that many groups were considering their plans for events, most of which are held in June or July.
“some groups have decided to cancel, and others are looking at postponement until later in the summer,”he said.
the uncertainty comes at the same time that the council has decided to change the way it allocates the budget for such events.
the £40,000 budget was allocated using the same process as in previous years but this has caused a number of issues around the ability of the budget to cover the applications. Whilst all groups were funded it became clear that changes would be required.
in a report to the committee Mr grierson said:“the current approach means that there can be variances each year with some groups applying some years and not others with some applicants requesting to be added if re-established or newly formed this makes the amount requested variable and makes the process difficult to manage within the budget.”
the new arrangements will see a payment of £500 paid to each applicant (in 2018/19 the lowest amount paid to an applicant was £513 so this will protect those that received the least previously).
in addition to the £500, all groups will receive a per capita payment in line with their respective populations (based on updated 2018 population figures).
Councillors expressed concerns that groups may not be able to go ahead if their previous funding levels were not matched.
Mr grierson pointed out that there was no major adjustment to figures. He added that in the current climate where was a fair degree of uncertainty about events going ahead this year.
Councillor tom Conn said the council was in danger of sending out mixed messages at a time when all the advice was against social interaction.
Chairing the committee, Councillor Kirsteen sullivan said Councillor Conn’s remarks should be taken on board but asked for an update on how the new budget was working and on how groups were affected for the next meeting.