Plot to rename bonfire night

[the-e-dealer]

The Fireworks as so rarely in the South of the Borough and its bloody hard to get to the Northern Parks as the roads go into Gridlock. JB has helped get them cancelled Great!

[mockney piers]

Brockwell Park is only fifteen minutes walk away in all fairness, albeit in another borough. Let somebody else's council tax pay for it eh!

[the-e-dealer]

James you said

"Lastly the idea and title of the event was bonkers - which strangely is what the press actually picked up on. I spoke to a number of reporters explaining our total position but they plucked out this point."

I have attached your press release which was sent to journod. The phrase "politically correct" is in the title, the first line and the first line of the quote so for you to claim that journos picked up on this theme by themselves is completely disingenous.

Also you said

"Instead of the traditional bonfire and fireworks" - there will be traditional fireworks. The last council-run bonfire was held in 2002 there hasnt been one since then because they kept leading to riots.

"they are blowing ?55,000 at the same time as cutting funds for our local youth groups. We have been eeking along down here in Dulwich with patchy youth provision leaving our young people in the lurch. This is why we balk when we see large sums being spent on something ephemeral. The bottom line is that the basic needs of our young people aren't being met, which is a situation that we must remedy." - clearly they never wanted any money to be spent on an event in dulwich preferring it to be spent on youth provision so you cant now start calling for the money to go to Dulwich Festival!

[the-e-dealer]

Mockney - the money is being spent in the North of the Borough instead. So nothing saved and the event not very accessible to us Southerner yet again. Thanks Barber the Cutter !

[DJKillaQueen]

That's exactly where James got things so wrong this time...events funding is a borough wide scheme but he treated it like it was a local funding issue...that somehow the money would still be spent locally if it was cancelled! And he didn't exactly say 'no comment' when the wider press came calling to give him the opportunity to play career politician and knock Labour, and then wonders why the Labour controlled council won't be listening to any of his ideas on events funding anytime soon.

Of course money can always be spent on something else....half of the all the money spent by councils might be better spent in other departments....but for me that's a pointless discussion to have now. The time to argue the toss on what money is allocated where is when the council sets it's budget at the beginning of it's fiscal year. The fact is that there is

78k or whatever available for larger events and it's now not going to be spent in Dulwich.

[Annette Curtain]

James B looks like a "nice" Guy

http://jamesbarber.mycouncillor.org.uk/councillors/jamesbarber.jpeghttp://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSLrqvnducb2FQsHhA4_p1pRGY1qgzv83_QjwkxvM7XSLvnTpeRPg

[RosieH]

Lastly the idea and title of the event was bonkers

The e-dealer coveref my point about political correctness, which, James, you have chosen not to answer. So I think we can just accept that that was arrant nonsense designed to get the press excited, and in fact there was nothing remotely politically correct (or incorrect for that matter) about the planned event.

My other question would be, do you know whether the planned event had some kind of narrative theme, did it tell a story about the loss of colour, or was it just a firework display? And did you bother to find out? If it told a story, stories have names. Ergo, the name is not remotely bonkers.

[DJKillaQueen]

From what I understand Rosie the event was a theatrical carnival of light and not exclusively a fireworks display - so preumably the title reflected the content/ theme of the carnival and seems perfectly reasonable to me.

[the-e-dealer]

James Barber the Fireworks Thief

[James Barber]

Blimey!

The final result appears to now be a traditional bonfire night in Southwark Park and ?30,000 leftover for an event in Dulwich at a later date.

The Colour Thief... was going to be a fusion of Firework night, Diwali, Christmas and Hanukkah on Friday 4 November this year. Hence the unusual title. As this event would involve fireworks and planned to always take place around 5 November http://moderngov.southwarksites.com/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=22438

Frankly I didn't get mixing all those events up with bonfire night.

Hi DJKillaQueen, I gave one example of the many problems major events have caused in Dulwich Park. The council could take the view they should ignore Friends of Dulwich Park but thankfully they didn't.

[DJKillaQueen]

Pretty much every 'friends of' organisation opposes big events in their parks James.....if the council listened to all of them there would be no large events. Like I said, any budget always includes the cost of the the clean up afterwards and with good planning measures can be taken to prevent most problems.

[James Barber]

I agree with you in general DJKillaQueen. Absolutely that's how events should be run. It's just that Southwark Council events team haven't successfully run big events in Dulwich Park and didn't allow enough funds to rectify all the damage caused under their management. And then took each time a year to repair the damage they caused.

Risking Dulwich Park for 2,000 people event lasting 1 hour versus a year before the park is repaired. It feels a no brainer to me.

[v_the_gelfling]

I wouldn't go to just see fireworks, bonfire night must have a bonfire otherwise i'm not interested.