TOWN councillors have pulled the plug on Tavistock’s historic Goose Fair for the second year running after officers said they could not recommend going ahead with the event on safety grounds.

Tavistock councillors meeting tonight were told in a comprehensive report by town clerk Carl Hearn that an already overstretched staff would struggle to run the event, which was cancelled last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Councillors planned for the fair as though it was going ahead, but had been warned it might not due to uncertainties over the pandemic. The vote was close, with seven voting to cancel and five voting to go ahead.

Mr Hearn listed a catalogue of hazards facing the town council, as principal organisers, which mostly revolved around issues of public safety and the uncertainty of whether noises coming from the Government implying a ‘firebreak’ lockdown next month as Covid cases rise would mean the fair would not be permitted in any case.

The town clerk said: ‘Your officers are, with regret, unable to recommend proceeding with Goose Fair in 2021 on safety grounds.

‘However, if it were to be the settled view of the council that the event should proceed, then the general manager has identified a range of measures to try and mitigate some of those safety issues in part, where possible.’

Councillors had previously been told by general manager Wayne Southall that town hall staff were proceeding as though the fair would go ahead this year, although they should be prepared — because of uncertainties surrounding the pandemic — for the possibility that it would not.

On Tuesday, councillors were told, via Mr Hearn’s report: ‘Providing a safe, sustainable and enjoyable experience for all, stakeholders, residents and visitors alike, sits at the heart of the event.’

Mr Hearn said there were two main challenges facing the council, which were the effect of the pandemic and the extent to which a safe and secure environment could be provided and the authority’s ‘much diminished’ capacity to stage the fair, given that staff numbers had been reduced because of the financial carnage caused by Covid-19.

He said: ‘Looking to experiences elsewhere, there have been some clear reported relationships between certain large scale events and viral transmission, mostly recently evidenced by the spike in cases (said to be 5,000) attributed to Boardmasters at Newquay. There is also unprecedented advice from visitcornwall asking visitors to avoid the county unless they had pre-booked and those who did visit to test regularly.’

Mr Hearn said other open air events, such as Nottingham’s Goose Fair — the only other fair of its type in the country — and the Plymouth Music Festival in July, had been cancelled. Nottingham’s fair falls on the second Wednesday in the month, the same as Tavistock’s.

The town clerk, who pointed out it was not possible to limit numbers to the fair in same way other events had been able to, said the council had fewer staff than at any time in the past ten years. Normally, the Goose Fair team consisted of five full-time equivalent staff, although this year because of staff shortages, it would be somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5. He said there was some risk of losing staff at or around the event as not all have been vaccinated against the virus.

He added: ‘There is also the possibility that delivery of the event might place additional pressure upon an already reduced and stressed staffing establishment, both in the run up and following the event, alongside potential consequential impacts on ability to deliver public safety on the day itself.’