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LANCASTER CARNIVAL OF CULTURE

28/2/08: Lancaster's first ever carnival of Culture is coming this Saturday with a party happening all over the City Centre! It's going to be amazing! So don't forget to dress up and bring banners, placards, flags, musical
instruments and your happy head!
You can find out more about the carnival at www.carnivalofculture.org.uk.
Route and Events
1pm Alfred St Car Parks
Steel band and start of the procession.The Carnival will weave its way around the city, stopping off at points for performances, music and fun. Musicians will be playing all around town.
1.45pm Dalton Square
Dance to Samba and Auction of the City, place your bid for a chunk of Lancaster.
2.30pm Castle Hill and Priory
Music, hot soup and kite flying.
Protest against the proposed car park.
3.30pm Salt Ayre Skate Park
Skating show opposite Kingsway development.
4pm Car Parks at Brewery Site
Big musical finale and fun. Say no to Centros' proposed big box shopping development.
Evening Entertainment
Gregson Community Centre
4pm 'til late: Food, DJs and Live Music from the Wind-up Merchants, Kriss Foster, Odd Sox, Miss Bloomer and Grum from Sourpuss! Donations on the door
Lavender Lounge. Yorkshire House £2/3 entry. 8.30 onwards Women only cabaret night
Line-up at www.lavenderlounge.co.uk
Park Hotel
5pm - 2am Solar Carnival Special. Creativity, art and music from the Solar Crew. Featuring the Ashan Project and the cream of the local DJ crop. Donations on the door
Brittania 101,
Ullswater Road, Lancaster.
DJ Party After the Event night.
All Day on Radio Diversity FM Carnival of Culture Special
103.5fm or online at www.diversityfm.co.uk

CAR PARKING
28/2/08: Cr Jim Blakely (Lab. John O'Gaunt ward) has proposed a task group to look at ways in which the parking problems around the district can be improved. The task group would be established to look at all parking issues including those caused by commuters and difficulties with the Council's car parks.
Cllr Blakely said: "Parking is the biggest issue I deal with as ward councillor and I think by looking at the big picture and opening dialogue with large employers and also drivers we can tackle this."
"In John O'Gaunt Ward, we are plagued with commuters who go to town, hospital and the University of Cumbria simply because they choose not to use the car parks available or are not able to. We need to investigate ways of getting these cars off streets and into car parks."
"I hope this will be a major step in improving our parking problems."
Meanwhile Lancaster City Council Cabinet has resisted proposals to increase car park charges. The charge for parking for up to one hour will be unchanged in 2008-9 from the fee charged in 2007-8, and a tariff will be set for the first time for a four hour parking period.
Leader of the Council Roger Mace tells us that these changes were in line with requests from stakeholders, and take account of concern for the viability of traders and service providers in the urban core of the district and the lack of suitable public transport alternatives to the car for the majority of residents in the rural areas of the district."
The proposal now in the budget means that some £26,000 less revenue will be taken from motorists over the period 1 June 2008 to 31 March 2009 than would have been the case under the proposals approved in January. Due to the implementation of an urgent business item arising from new legislative provisions, changing the two hour rate back from £1.70 to £1.60 has an implementation cost estimated at £4,000, which is in addition to the normal cost of the annual revision to parking fees.

COUNCIL TAX RISE ANNOUNCED
28/2/08: Lancaster City Council's portion of Council Tax will rise by 4.5% for the majority of residents living in the district. Residents living in an average Band D property will pay an extra £7.90 - or 15p a week - to the city council from April 2008.
City councillors confirmed the rise at a meeting on Wednesday when they set the council's net revenue budget for 2008/09 at £23.211 million.
This allows the council to fund a range of statutory services including refuse collection, housing, planning and environmental health, as well as a number of discretionary services such as tourism, arts, events and leisure services.
All councils have to achieve a balance between providing good quality services to their residents and keeping council tax rises to a minimum," commented Coun Roger Mace, leader of the Council. "I believe the cabinet's recommended budget achieved that balance. It has been approved unchanged by council." Mace says prudent budgeting and improving efficiency means the Council has managed to reduce the rise in Council Tax from the high early estimate of 15 per cent (which the government would not have permitted) down to their target of 4.5 per cent, below the 5 per cent rise government told councils would be considered permissible.
"We are already looking at the figures predicted for future years," added mace, "so we can continue to do the best we can for residents."
As the Billing Authority Lancaster City Council collects Council Tax but only receives around 12 per cent to spend on its services. Of the remaining the majority goes to Lancashire County Council (75 per cent), with precepts from Lancashire Police Authority (9 per cent) and Lancashire Combined Fire Authority (4 per cent) making up the rest of the bill.
When all these sums are added up the average resident in a Band D property will see their bill rise by £51.49 overall.
The county council's increase (for services like education, Social Services and highways) will be 2.95 per cent or £30.86. The Police Authority's will be 7.95 per cent or £10.01, and the Fire Authority's increase will be 4.74 per cent or £2.72.

MARITIME FESTIVAL SAVED!
First posted 21/2/08, updated 25/2/08: Good news. Following our report of the possible cancellation of this year's Maritime Festival scheduled to take place in Glasson Dock at Easter, the Council has agreed that the event will go ahead with funding being found from alternative budgets.
This decision is subject to the usual call in period, which is five working days.
The decision comes after allegations of another behind the scenes plot at Lancaster Town Hall, this time to scupper the Festival, apparently engineered by a small group of councillors.
When the allegations came to light the City Council quickly released a statement reporting a potential shortfall in funding for this year's event.
In the statement, Mark Cullinan, chief executive of Lancaster City Council explicitly denied any allegations of behind the scenes moves to cancel the Festival and outlined the Council's funding concerns, which will be discussed openly before a decision on the event's future is made. On Friday, a council report - PDF format - was compiled in order for a decision to be made about the Festival under the council's urgent business procedures. That report has now been considered and the Festival will go ahead.
“In 2005 Lancaster City Council, as part of its review of festivals and events," Mr Cullinanan stated, "taking funding away from a number of council run events, including the Lancaster Maritime Festival and in their place created a Festivals Innovation Fund.
"In 2006 we were approached by a group of individuals with a view to running a maritime event in 2007. The event was run by this group with some input from our cultural services department, who had experience of running previous maritime festivals in Lancaster.
"Through the newly created Festivals Innovation Fund, along with money from other sponsors, the event went ahead in Glasson Dock.
"There was no Maritime Festival planned for 2008 private sector until sponsorship was offered, at a very late stage, and the Maritime Festival is therefore planned to take place over the Easter weekend of March 21 to 24.
"In line with the decision taken by the council in 2005, it was expected that the festival would be funded externally and run at no cost to the council, apart from officer time.
"However, it has become apparent that there is a funding gap of around £10,000 between the external funding and the anticipated cost of the festival.
"A report is currently being prepared which will ask Elected Members (via the appropriate decision making process) whether to authorise financial support to enable the festival to go ahead..
"This decision will be taken publicly and publicised via the council’s website as a matter of urgency.”
The statement came after virtual-lancaster learnt of rumours that some Morecambe councillors were allegedly behind a plot to get the Festival cancelled, apparently frustrated that Glasson or Lancaster stage the Maritime Festival rather than Morecambe.
We were informed on Thursday 21st February that a meeting was to take place "behind closed doors" where the future of the festival would be discussed, with a view to cancellation. As stated above, such a meeting has been denied by the Council, but, as indicated, there will be a meeting to discuss the Festival very soon. The council sent virtual-lancaster a copy of the report on the Festival on Friday 22 February which has been considered in the decision to let the Festival go ahead. "Clearly there has been some misinformation," a council spokesperson told virtial-lancaster, "and this report makes clear the current position and how it has been reached."
Several councillors commented on the situation when the allegations came to light.
"I first learned of any 'problems' relating to the Maritime Festival some 30 minutes before the start of cabinet on Tuesday of this week,' said Council leader Roger Mace. 'A report was requested by cabinet at that meeting, and when
the report is received, a decision will be made under urgent business procedures. The report will be a public report, and the decision will be a public decision.' (This has now indeed happened, as above).
"I am not aware that the Maritime Festival has been cancelled or of any meeting today with councillors and council officials," Coun Evelyn Archer, a keen supporter of local arts, particularly Morecambe's Winter Gardens, told virtual-lancaster.
"Well done for bringing this out into the open," A N Other councillor responded, acknowledging in the format of their response that cancellation was indeed being discussed, a claim perhaps at odds with the more "open government" statement made later by the Council. "I hope you and your journalist colleagues will expose the malign forces at work in this sorry affair – whoever he or she is."
They implied that by writing to every local councillor (with an email address - three do not have one) virtual-lancaster had almost certainly made contact the instigator of the cancellation plan, even if they did not respond.
"But there are also Good Guy(s) in there too," they added, "whose mettle has been tested and not found wanting."
The Maritime Festival was immensely successful for years and was the largest in Europe. Then the City Council, in its wisdom, decided to take most of its funding away, to the dismay of regular visitors and locals alike.
Thanks to a big shot-in-the-arm of private sponsorship, the festival was rescued and sited in Glasson Dock rather than on the St. George's Quay and the surrounding area in Lancaster.
One local musician told virtual-lancaster he was furious to learn of the latest apparent skullduggery to sabotage the Festival and immediately began letting Lancastrians know what was going on, including this web site. "If it is to be cancelled, I am sure that like me, the general public will want to know quite simply -- why? It's hardly costing council tax payers any money, brings in thousands of visitors each year, is soundly based on the history and traditions of this District and provides excellent, participatory entertainment and education.

"Why is this decision being made?"

• On Friday 22 February an anonymous source contacted virtual-lancaster, claiming the real reason for the attempt to cancel the Festival was that certain Morecambe Bay Independent councellors were unhappy that there is no Morecambe 'component' to the festival, and that they weren`t consulted when it was decided that the festival would go ahead.
They want a reciprocal festival in Morecambe but don`t have the funding.
The source told virtual-lancaster that claims that there were serious shortfalls in the Festivals's funding were untrue. 'The funding is all in place and at this moment, it will cost more to cancel the festival than to allow it to go ahead,' they indicated. 'Two thirds of the money for the Maritime has been raised by donations from private companies. The City Council's share was already available in the festivals fund. This amount is far less than was allocated last year.
'Lancaster City Council officers and staff have been instructed not to discuss this matter with anyone outside of the Town hall.'

The anonymous commentator's views have been supported by others. One councillor told virtual-lancaster over the wekend that there 'political machinations' from the MBIs were afoot, while a vl reader describing themselves as a "supporter of the festival" told us "I believe that the [Festival] organisers were told shortly after Christmas that the council wanted a Maritime Festival 2008 and in less than third of the time they normally have, they booked the artists, venues and secured over £20,000 of sponsorship from outside the council.
"I feel obliged to respond to the article recently published about the most recent attempts to scupper the Maritime Festival," they added. "In particular to point out that the quote from Mark Cullinan concerning the funding of and the running of the 2007 festival is not true!
The festival supporter says that the 2007 Festival team of about half a dozen people who built, ran and cleared up the festival worked seriously long hours and put their heart and soul into a festival which they believde in - alongside David Wright and Val Simpkin. They were paid by Lancaster City Council from the Cultural Services Budget. They were not volunteers and were not part of a community group who had applied to the festivals innovation fund, but were people who experienced at creating, running and clearing up events - everything from hosting the launch party for the benefit of the councillors and sponsors, to hoiking safety barriers around and fixing generators. The above quote from
The comments Mark Cullinan 'takes the credit away from where it is due,' says the Festival supporter. 'This event is internationally recognised and loved - sorely missed by, in particular, the businesses and museum on the Lancaster Quayside - and welcomed by the people and businesses of Glasson.
'The City Council appears determined to kill it - I have no idea why - I don't think they would know a good thing when it kicked them in the backside. They don't deserve this festival.'
After news broke that the Festival would go ahead, we received more anonymous comment. "The alternative funding excuse is just a face saving measure, as the funding is in place and always has been.
"Maybe there needs to be some kind of public 'working group' created to ensure that future festivals don't suffer the fate that this one almost did."
The idea of a public working group, or similar, seems good to us, although arguably this is the role of the City Council.

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