Dispute between council and show organisers means Beach Buggin is probably not going ahead https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/p...g-ahead-in-portsmouth-after-dispute-1-8376103
This just posted on the Beachbuggy.info forum: It seems that Portsmouth Council may be back tracking. Donna Jones Leader Portsmouth City Council : Statement from Portsmouth City Council regards Beach Buggin' Quote Portsmouth City Council was disappointed to learn today that the popular VW event, Beach Buggin will not be returning to Southsea Commin this year. This is a popular event and many local families attend it each year. The last contact the council had with the orgiansers was in September 2017. In spite the council emailing the organisers in October, there has been no contact until an email was received today. Cllr Lynda Symes said: “Portsmouth City Council has no objection to money being raised for charity, including those outside of the city such as the Rowans Hospice or scout groups based in Hayling Island. The Helping Hands Homeless Charity are not "disapproved" or "opposed" by PCC and do great work for the homeless. Last year there were issues including vehicular movements directly adjacent to the War Memorial on the seafront. Clearly this is a very sentative area of the common, and we need to ensure the area is properly managed. The council has not requested a gated event, the fact the event is open and not fenced in, works well. We did however request that the War Memorial was sectioned off with fencing.“ The numbers of people attending the event has grown in popularity and is now in excess of 5000. As per all large scale events, due to recent terroist attacks in the UK, any event with 5000 people plus need to have adequate safety measures in place. Portsmouth City Council have a duty of care to work with Hampshire Police and South East Counter-Terroisim where appropriate, to ensure events on our land are adhering to national safety requirements. This is the same for all events. We are happy to offer support to the organisers to assist them with the background work required to meet these requirements including the preparation of the traffic management plans and we have invited them to attend the Public Saftey Advisory Group meeting in December where a number of event organisers get together to discuss saftey plans and ideas. They have failed to attend the meeting. Portsmouth City Council hopes Beach Buggin will meet with us as a matter of urgency and take up our offer of help so this popular event can continue. If they decide not to continue, we would urge other such event organisers to get in touch so we can continue with a similar event in 2018 in Southsea.
