Preparations for King's coronation celebrations in Skegness to go ahead

Councillors are planning a Great British Garden Party in Tower Gardens on Saturday, May 6, and a working party including representatives of local businesses has been involved in the organisation.

However, there were concerns that after plans for the event, originally a dog show and dove release, had escalated to include a stage and entertainment, a large screen displaying highlights of the coronation ceremony, circus acts and fairground rides and there had not been a lot of time to get the necessary paperwork in place for insurance purposes.

With just over a week to go before the event, councillors met last night to see if preparations had moved along enough for the event to go ahead.

Town clerk Steve Larner said he had still not seen the risk assessments for the children’s rides and he had not had information about the circus acts. He said the safety advisor had identified some improvements ti the risk assessments they would like to see. “Some of them may be minor risks but there are 28 and I’m not an expert on event management,” he explained.

However, he said the working party had made great strides since the previous week’s meeting and it was up to the councillor to decide oif they were in a position to go ahead.

The majority of councillors agreed they wanted the event to go ahead, with one congratulating the working group in what they had achieved and apologising for the challenges that they were facing.

It was also hoped that the councillors understood the risks should anything go wrong on the day.

Deputy Events Manager Martin Brown told councillors he was confident that everything could be in place in the next couple of days.

It was agreed that preparations should continue for the event to take place.

Afterwards, Mr Brown said: “I am delighted about where were are tonight.

"We have an amazing day of activities lined up. There’s going to be fun for everybody. Everything has been sorted. It’s going to be a great day.”

• We will the full line-up of events in next week’s Skegness Standard newspaper.