Funfair? No - Unfair!

It looks like Boston's oldest attraction is under threat.
The town's May Fair has been on the go since 1135 ad - 106 years before the inception of Boston Market.

But a report before tonight's meeting of the council's Policy Development Committee is being asked to consider the following recommendations:

1. That members put forward their favoured option for this year's fair of either an eight day fair with a rent increase of 5% or a six day fair with a 35% rent increase.

2. To recommend the cabinet to tell officers to invite bids from showmen for “floating plots” in Central Park as an extension of the Mayfair* (sic) on an annual basis.

3. That the cabinet confirms that if the police charge for their services during the Mayfair* (sic), these costs will be passed on to the tenants of the fair so there will be no cost to the council . Money, money, money!

This council, which can hurl millions at a sports facility that no-one wants or uses, is balking at paying less than £10,000 towards an event that for many years has turned it a profit.

In so doing it risks losing one of the few remaining street fairs in the country.

The Showmen's Guild of Great Britain has said it is willing to pay a 5% increase, and adds "it was forcibly felt that the May Fair tenants are being asked to subsidise other council activities."

Only recently, the town's Continental Market fell by the wayside - principally because the powers that be felt that its proposed location might interfere with the smooth running of the Into Town bus service.

Perhaps this is at the back of their minds with the May Fair, and the idea of pricing the showmen into packing it all in would make it look like their decision.

Ominously, the Policy Development Committee is being asked for their views on cancellation of the event if full cost recovery is not achievable, so we feel that the writing is already on the wall.
Bit by bit the things that make Boston a different and distinctive place are being destroyed.
What's next, we wonder?
*Footnote: May Fair is written this way because it is a fair that is held in May, and not Mayfair, which is how it is wrongly spelt in council documents

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