Blackpool Carnival committee vow event will go on

Organisers have vowed to carry on regardless following emergency committee meetings.

The event was hit with controversy late last month when a former committee member, Donna Jackson, wrote to organisations warning them that current chairman Geoff Moore had set up a private company called Blackpool Carnival and was one of two shareholders.

She also said the carnival was claiming to be a Community Interest Company and a charity when it was merely a community group.

As a result several groups said they would not take part.

But Geoff Moore said at the time the company was only set up to protect the name after rows with previous organisers and it could be come a CIC or charity at a later stage and take over the company name.

Today he said the event will go ahead. Around 30 acts and organisations so far would take part and the Promenade at Waterloo headland would have a stage and be filled with stalls.

He said: “We have held several meetings ultimately to ascertain whether the event should go ahead as planned, be postponed until later on in the year or be cancelled altogether. At the last committee meeting held, it was unanimously agreed that the Blackpool Carnival should go ahead as planned on July 22.

“The carnival is an annual event but it is so much more than this, we had planned to have regular smaller events working together with other associations, bringing awareness of their particular cause and service.”