Call for Gypsies to pay for Stow Fair clean up

From the Gloucestershire Echo

CALLS have been stepped-up for Gypsies to contribute to the cost of their twice-yearly Stow Horse Fair.

In the wake of Thursday's event, Stow and Maugersbury Action Group (SMAG) renewed their appeal for the financial burden of the event to be taken from local taxpayers.

The organisation of the gathering and cost of the extensive clean-up needed afterwards currently falls to Cotswold District Council.

And the overall cost, as revealed in January 2010, was an estimated £125,000.

The same month, the Gypsies offered £500 to help combat the fair's impact.

But SMAG chairman Bob Fisher said £50,000 would be closer to the mark.

"In these days of financial stringency why do they think the costs incurred by Cotswold District Council and the police should be borne by council taxpayers and not by them?" he said.

"The fair is a business opportunity for the field owners, they charge stallholders and caravans to come onto the field.

"Their income is considerable and a contribution of £50,000 per fair to the public purse would go some way to meeting the true costs incurred by CDC, the police, Gloucestershire Highways, the ambulance service etc.

"The way to do it is to invoice them."

Mr Fisher said he had submitted in a Freedom of Information Act request for an up-to-date detailed breakdown of all expenditure to the district and county council, Gloucestershire Highways, the police, ambulance service and Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue.

He stressed costs to clean up the fall-out from this week's "quagmire" site would spiral.

He added that a tractor had been used to pull vehicles off the site, depositing large quantities of mud on the road.

"These are the conditions that responsible organisers of recent events have avoided by cancelling, for instance Badminton, on health and safety and environmental grounds," he said.

"A mechanised road sweeper was called in but who will pay for it?

"Is it right the Gypsies come and treat our environment with so little respect?"

Vera Norwood, president of the National Gypsy Council for Education, Culture, Welfare and Civil Rights, has said the gypsies also had concerns, particularly over the safety of fair goers, and more needed to be done to protect people.