Full Steve ahead for 2024 parade

An estimated 200,000 people were in Spalding on Saturday as the Flower Parade returned after a ten-year absence.

And the man behind it has already started the fundraising for it to return on May 11, 2024.
“I think it was a decent show,” deadpans Steve Timewell, while he is busy unpinning flowers with his army of volunteers days after the event.
“My main reaction is one of relief that it went, and elation that it went how I wanted and also how a lot of people had wanted too.
“I’m getting emails and messages from across the country and from many coach drivers.
“We’ve had a brilliant reaction.
“I think the best thing about all of this was seeing everyone coming on board.
“We had people doing head counts at certain points on the route of the parade and from that we’ve estimated there were around 200,000 people along the roads.
“We certainly had at least 48,000 coming into the Castle Sports Complex arena but because we weren’t at risk of over-crowding in there we stopped counting.
“The atmosphere was brilliant. I spoke to local police chief Nick Walters and he said there were no major incidents in the town.”
There’s been a campaign on social media for Steve to be given accolades such as a Pride of Britain Award.
Previous to this he says he’d organised “a few antiques fairs,” but nothing on the scale of the Flower Parade.
He’s named May 11 as the day it will be back in 2024 and has launched the Just Giving page ‘Weʼre raising £50,000 to Fund the 2024 Spalding Flower Parade It’s back for good now’.
“It’s only been up a few hours and we’ve already had some fantastic donations,” Steve said.
“I’ve had 15 new companies getting in touch wanting to be involved next year.
“I’m now 100 per cent confident the local community can now fund and run this every year.
“We’ve had no shortage of volunteers and I think it’s important it remains a community project and not put on by councillors.
The Just Giving page is on the internet at www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/spalding-flower-parade

• See a five-page picture special on this year’s parade in this week’s paper which is here.

Part one of our gallery is here.

Part two is here.

Part three comprising reader pictures is here.

A video of the entire parade, plus live videos with sound, visit The Voice Facebook page here.