The council’s replacement for Brighton’s Christmas Market won’t go ahead this year.
Brighton and Hove City Council said it couldn’t find a commercial partner to commit to a single year – and couldn’t afford the £70,000 needed to stage an event on its own.
In July, previous organiser E3 Events said it was “relaunching” its Christmas Festival – but not putting on the market or funfair it had brought to Valley Gardens 2021 and 2022.
The council said it wanted to stage its own event with “brass bands, choirs, gifts, crafts and fun for all the family”.
But today, lead councillor for tourism and culture Alan Robins said this wouldn’t be possibe this year.
He said: “Organising a Christmas Market for the city was always dependent on finding a new commercial partner to help us to fund and co-ordinate the event.
“Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we have been unable to find a partner willing to commit to the project for a single year.
“Given the enormous funding crisis the council is facing, we cannot commit to spending the £70,000 needed to stage an event.
“We wanted to create a different kind of Christmas Market this year – because in the two years it was staged it was never actually all that popular with the public, and was also expensive for traders who wanted a pitch there.
“We received a fantastic response from community groups, artists and makers in the city keen to be involved In a Christmas event – and we appreciate they will be disappointed.
“However, we will keep in touch and look forward to involving them in future Christmas events in the city.
“We recently announced a wonderful scheme we’re planning to have a community Christmas tree put up in each of the 23 council wards across the city in time for Christmas.
“We will be announcing further information about this lovely community initiative as soon as we can.”
The previous markets were absolutely rubbish anyway.
Agree 100%. Way over priced for rubbish items too.
“We recently announced a wonderful scheme we’re planning to have a community Christmas tree put up in each of the 23 council wards across the city in time for Christmas.”
LOL 😂 another Labour administration failure. So much for needing a clear majority to get things done.
Yeah rubbish but a bit of fun with the kids. Don’t be so miserable
Labour council probably preoccupied with finding a parking space for Bella Sankey’s Range Rover
Maybe if they’d done something to get their still-outstanding loan for the i360 paid back, they’d be able to afford this.
Good news at last – even for those who revel in the fantasy of Xmas.
The recent Xmas rent-a-stall-for-profit markets were totally shit.
There’s no reason to suppose a council version of the same thing could do anything better – when trying to entice back stall holders who made no money under the privatised arrangement n the first place.
The public are also aware of the pointlessness of buying overpriced tat under some unrealistic panic – based on that ‘anything goes’ at Xmas time..
The only benefit to the council anyway was in renting out public land which is ours. At best, it was a small paper profit for the council, which actually took no longer view assessment of the impact on the land, or of noise and disruption for local residents.
We also have numerous existing local shops and businesses which need council support, and not unfair competition from stupid and frivolous ideas.
Indeed. The chief function of the Xmas Market appeared to be the sale of alcohol, coffee and food, all to the detriment of established local traders.
That’s basically what any market event is? Not exactly a revolutionary realisation, that one.
BHCC just needs to reduce the exorbitant price of parking in order to encourage more footfall.
And sort out a viable alternative to insisting on everyone using the kin phone app to park!
Maybe even have a free parking day before Xmas – but that would probably be stretching it for the mean-spirited and mean-witted cretins in the Transport department
Free parking at Christmas is a waste of money. There is not a scintilla of evidenced from anywhere that it increases footfall to city centre shops or increases turnover, and there is a likelihood that it makes things worse by increasing congestion on the roads as people drive who would have come by train/bus, and clogs up parking spaces as people stay all day rather than the couple of hours they would usually take.
A few years back the council did the sums and calculated that it would cost around £400k in lost income to provide free parking in city centre carparks. Can the council afford that? And why should this large subsidy be offered to already pampered and subsidised car users over others?
I believe you will find that parking charges are not decided by the transport department or even the parking department. The council is run by committee and as such the charges are decided by our elected councillors.
“Results of a spatial regression indicate that public transport stops, pedestrian zones, and public parking garages nearby increase the attractiveness of retail locations. On the contrary, much on-street parking capacity in the immediate vicinity reduces retail rents. However, sufficient parking capacity should be accessible within a comfortable walking distance. This finding supports the approach of reducing on-street parking in city centres while concentrating stationary car traffic in multi-storey car parks.” (Merten and Kuhnimhof, 2023)