The Town Council met this Wednesday to ratify the Recreation Committee’s decision to reject the proposal by Russ Gibson to bring back the Great Aycliffe Show. This was backed by the Leader of the Council Bob Fleming in his front page letter in Newton News last week.
Independent Councillor Arun Chandran thought the applicants had a good case and supported them in an amendment to the motion: “That Minute 93 be referred back for reconsideration regarding the Great Aycliffe Show, and that we invite the applicants to that meeting for a detailed discussion. This was seconded by Cllr Ken Robson. We believe the Recreation Committee should meet with the organisers to discuss in public, any questions, doubts, reservations, concerns it has with their proposals.
If the proposal is workable, has merit or if it was not viable, with every doubt or question answered or not, the meeting of minds to overcome obstacles would achieve something of use to our community.
There should be no party political issue on this as it wasn’t in any manifesto or election leaflet, so no mandate. Indeed our M.P. is also requesting we support this reconsideration.
We are not committing anyone to anything, but we are keeping an open mind and will be seen to have examined every possibility of the return of the Great Aycliffe Show, with or without the Council giving any form of assistance. It may not happen this year, but we should not close our minds to the possibilities.
We owe it to the residents of our Town, to try to make things happen, especially if it serves the public interest and is of low or no cost to the Council. From the Town Council’s point of view the question should be what can we do to help.
After this and Councillor Jed Hillary answered public questions of which nine attended the meeting. The Council in a cross party vote decided to reject the proposal by 13 votes to 9.
The applicant Russ Gibson told Newton News: “Of course we are disappointed with the outcome, and we thank Councillor Arun Chandran and his Independent colleagues for supporting us. But it’s even more disappointing, and alarming, that this decision was effectively made by a handful of Labour councillors behind closed doors during their Aycliffe Labour Group meetings, without giving any thought to their residents. What is also really concerning is Andrew Bailey’s appraisal – and Jed Hilary’s subsequent report during Wednesday night’s meeting – which was riddled with inaccuracies and factual errors.
“We sat down with Andrew Bailey on 2nd October, away from the Recreation Committee, and discussed in great detail the potential show, and what we’d need to do. We recognised then that our inexperience of organising large-scale events would be a major concern, which is why we employed a reputable events management company to produce a safety report for us.
“Yet the majority of the issues raised in his appraisal came as news to me – he never highlighted many of these concerns before we submitted our application or during our discussions.
“Andrew Bailey has also known since day one that he was dealing with a limited company – not once did he raise this as a concern, and not once did he tell me this would mean the press and public (including myself) would be exempt from its discussions in the committee meeting.
“Overall the general handling of this has not been good. We’re volunteers, we have put hundreds of hours of our own voluntary time into this project – but not once does Andrew Bailey, as a very well-paid council officer, make any reference to this or give us any credit for trying to do something for the good for Newton Aycliffe.”
Bob Fleming told Newton News it was a fair hearing and this subject had brought the issue of the Great Aycliffe Show to the fore and at the next AGM the Council will be appointing a new Committee to review all Council activities including the possibility of the Council itself bringing back the Show.
