Letter - Have say on Ironbridge World Heritage Festival

Around this time last year residents of the Ironbridge Gorge were asked to a meeting for the World Heritage Festival due to the problems they experienced in 2010.

From these meetings those same residents were asked to attend meetings under the name of festival working group which quite a few attended.

In March this year we were told there was no budget from the council, Ironbridge Gorge Museum was not interested and the local parish council also said it would not be interested or sponsor the fireworks as there was no funding.

We discussed that the festival could be held on September 29, 2012, but we made the decision that, as there was no budget and the museum was not interested, it would be rested this year with the view of a possible date move to June 2013.

At around the same time rumours were going around that the festival will be going ahead this year anyway.

I have spoken to lots of locals who all have said we don't want it if it's the same mess as previous years.

We need a proper plan for the traffic.

So I welcome this meeting for July 20 at 6.30pm at Enginuity and hope that the people affected in previous years attend and take a stand to stop this becoming another laughable joke like last year where locals who went out for the day to get away from the festival found they couldn't get home!

So if you want to voice your questions or worries please attend the meeting on July 20 at 6.30pm at Enginuity.

Richard Soame, Telford