Council pledge £15k for balloon carnival

The balloon carnival was run by Nightingale House Hospice, Lindstrand Technologies and Oswestry Town Council over August bank holiday weekend, and saw 8,000 people descend on Cae Glas Park.

People were wowed by flights and night glow events, and now the town council want to ensure that next year's event goes ahead.

Oswestry Town Council met on Wednesday evening, with a report stating that the Civic Aviation Authority commended the organisers for its safety and balloonists said they enjoyed flying from the park.

The council agreed to continue to back the event again, and increase its contribution from £10,000 which covered some entertainment, infrastructure and safety measures.

Some businesses in the town had reported a huge increase in trading costs over the two day event.

In a report discussed by councillors, town clerk David Preston said the event wasn't well supported by businesses in terms of sponsorship, and that needs to change to help a prospective 2019 event.

He said: "Local businesses seem to have benefited from the event, with several reporting the Saturday as their busiest day of the year.

"The event was not well supported by local businesses in terms of sponsorship and in terms of engagement," the report said.

"There is a commitment from the partners to work with the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Improvement District and other businesses in the town to ascertain their support in the form of sponsorship, financial or in kind, to the value of £10,000.

"This is needed to secure the future of the event and recognises the considerable benefit to local businesses of having such a large town centre event."

Following the success of last month's event, the organisers were inundated with praise for their work.,

Mayor councillor Sandy Best said it was one of the best events that town had seen.

She said: "It was amazing, one of the best events I have seen come to Oswestry.

“Hats off to the organisers – it was fantastic to see so many people there."

“Trading was up and it was a huge success.”