A call has been made for Appleby Town Council to investigate if it is getting the best deal it can for local residents in relation to the amount which is charged for renting out Fair Hill during the historic annual gathering of gypsies and travellers.
Each June, hundreds of caravans and traditional bowtops travel to Appleby for the annual horse fair and their owners pay for the privilege of staying on Fair Hill or fields nearby.
On Wednesday, an extraordinary parish meeting held in Appleby’s public hall was called to discuss issues specifically relating to the use of Fair Hill during the horse fair.
Many of those present felt that the town council could charge the licensee a higher rent for use of Fair Hill.
Before the meeting started, there had been speculation that residents might ask for a vote, calling on the town council to stop renting Fair Hill out for use by gypsies and travellers.
However, Detective Superintendent, Dan St Quintin, gold commander for Appleby Horse Fair, made it very clear, that from a policing point of view there would be serious consequences to closing Fair Hill.
“It is going to make my life a lot harder and it will make the job of keeping everybody safe a lot more difficult because it affects my ability to deliver my strategy,” said Det Supt St Quintin.
“At the minute, when we have Fair Hill open, people who go there tend to be friendly with each other.
“There are some issues on there, but there are different factions of gypsies and travellers that go to different fields and different sites up near Fair Hill and without that ability to keep people separate and give people options of going elsewhere, I am not going to be able to mitigate risk as much,” he said.
Cumbria Constabulary would also find it challenging to monitor who was entering the site, without the capacity to use Fair Hill.
“We have got high volumes of people to manage,” he said.
He said that removing the capacity for people to stay on Fair Hill would also cut the cost to visitors of attending the event, and possibly push up numbers.
“At present people pay quite a bit of money to get on to Fair Hill,” he said.
In addition, he said if vehicles were not allowed on to Fair Hill, they would still come to the town and have nowhere to park.
“I have got issues with preventing access to Fair Hill. I will not be providing police officers to stop people getting on to Fair Hill if it not used (in the way it is now). It is private land,” he said.
The meeting was told there would need to be private security, fences, and other things at a cost to Appleby Town Council or another source to prevent access and that would run into tens of thousands of pounds.
“It will not be the police. I have not got the resources to do it when it is private land.
“If it is in a public place, that is where the police need to be. If there are a lot of caravans clogging up Appleby because they can’t get on Fair Hill, that is where the police resources need to be.
“It will affect the blue light routes, so if people phone for emergencies other than to do with Appleby Fair, (ambulance, fire or police) they will get a slower response because I believe that Appleby town will be clogged up by Fair Hill caravans and the vehicles that tow them,” he said.
There would also likely to be an increase in the local community experiencing anti-social behaviour and, with more incidents happening in Appleby, the surrounding villages might not get as much police attention as they usually get as resources will have to be concentrated elsewhere.
“My costs for police would increase significantly and if we didn’t use Fair Hill I think that would generate a lot of bad feeling and there would be a different atmosphere at the fair next year and that will create extra issues for me to police,” added Dep Supt St Quintin.
It was agreed that Appleby Town Council would look at the rental arrangement over the use of Fair Hill during the horse fair.
