‘Pay own security for war vet street party’
PLANS for a street party celebrating a 100-yearold Second World War veteran have been scrapped amid fears that it could cost up to £2,000 an hour to shut the road to traffic.
Neighbour Gerry Southgate, 61, and others on Manchester Road in Portsmouth had hoped to throw a big bash for Lawrence Blythe.
Gerry contacted Portsmouth City Council last year to ask about shutting their street, and was told doing so would mean paying for security, road closure and insurance, she claims.
The supermarket worker then researched different firms that could carry out the work and realised costs could become unaffordable.
So she and 15 other residents abandoned the plans, and instead held a smaller celebration for Lawrence on Saturday. Gerry said: “I’ve known Lawrence for as long as I’ve lived here. I see him every day – he’d walk past with his little dog, but it died last year. It broke him. We thought a party would be a real pick-me-up for him.”
She added: “We don’t live on a busy road. There was just going to be 15 of us to say happy birthday to our neighbour. I was in contact with the council who said we needed to pay for the road to be shut off, security and public liability. It would have cost us £2,000 for an hour – it wasn’t worth it.” Instead, Gerry and a few other neighbours went to Lawrence’s house to take a piece of cake and sing Happy Birthday. Portsmouth City Council said it would have provided further support for the street party if staff had been made aware.
It added: “No cost was quoted by either the events team or the transport team. If the events team had been made aware they were having difficulties, they’d have been happy to support further but they did not receive any further contact from the resident after the initial application.”