Labour scrap Queen's Park's popular Festival of Light - but boost the trade union's May Day event

Amid angry exchanges at the recent Chesterfield Council Cabinet meeting, the Labour Council announced that it was scrapping the popular Festival of Light. For the past 5 years this has taken place in Queen's Park as part of the increasingly popular Arts and Markets Festival, held over the October half-term.

Labour say they plan to use the money to pay for the Olympic and Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations, and to bring in another annual Festival over three days at the start of May 2013 - with the annual local trade-unions' May Day parade and celebration being on the third day.

At the Cabinet Meeting, the Liberal Democrat Leader, Cllr Ray Russell, said it was a great mistake to scrap an event that was very popular with families and youngsters, both during the Festival and leading up to it - and also brought in visitors, spending their money, from outside the borough. He said Labour were showing a real lack of vision for the future of Chesterfield and that they should be building upon this success of the recent Liberal Democrat Council ( 2003-2011) rather than scrapping it and moving the money into what he saw as the annual Labour-focussed political parade and event on May Day. He added that he thought it was a totally inappropriate use of Council Tax payer's money to spend it on giving publicity in this way to what was seen by many as a political event.

Cllr Russell said that he thought local folk should now be worried about the future of the Arts and Market's October Festival itself as, when in opposition, Labour had never supported the Festival and had talked about scrapping it - even though it brings national performers to Chesterfield and attracts visitors from across the country.