The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Holbeach Parish Council has come under fire for cancelling this year’s Remembrance Day parade.
There will still be a service on Remembrance Sunday, November 14, but the traditional parade for veterans is not going ahead.
A council statement said the decision was taken ‘with regret,’ and plans were already being worked on to reinstate the parade next year.
But the decision has not been welcomed and there have been a deluge of critical comments on the council’s social media.
“The decision was postponed for a week after our full council meeting on September 13 to allow more time to find marshals. The decision was made between the parish council and the Royal British Legion,” said the council.
It said there were 30 names put forward to help marshal the parade, an insurance requirement, but when they were contacted about training, only ten responded which wasn’t enough.
The statement also said they were struggling to find a two-way radio for all marshalls to cover the entire length of the parade at a reasonable cost.
“It is therefore with regret we couldn’t meet all the requirements for running a safe marching parade and we pushed it to the limit of when the paperwork needed to be submitted. So we couldn’t allow any more time to resolve the issues.”
But the backlash was swift on the council’s Facebook page.
“A whole year to get to grips with organisation and blame last minute problems,” said Anne King.
“HPC have had a year to arrange all this. It isn’t as if you didn’t know what date it was,” added Ian Venni.
“If thousands of folks can go to football matches and festivals, surely a march with veterans should not be a problem,” said Sandra Stokes.
Regulations around public parades require a fixed number of trained marshals at certain points, along with other steps to fulfil legal obligations ahead of the day.
