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Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Incompetent council killjoys have wrecked our ancient and eccentric English fair
Milverton is just a few winding, high-hedged, wild-garlic-banked roads away from us. It's a startlingly pretty west Somerset village of Georgian houses, with a street pattern that dates back to the medieval period, centring around a church. St Michael's stands prominent on the hill, overlooking a settlement that was prominent even at the time of the Domesday Book. There's a village store, a very fine piano tuner and a handsome pub, the latter bang on trend by being currently closed. But it has something that few such villages have – an event that can be traced back to the start of the 1700s. 1708 to be precise. It's called the Milverton Street Fair and it's been a high point of the May Day Bank Holiday Monday for us since we moved here just four years ago. Arrive at the head of the town, near the village shop, and you can see the fair stretching down the straight avenue of Fore Street, at the bottom of which, it turns slowly to the left. It's a magnificent sight with a very English rabble of stalls. You can peruse antiques, second-hand books, cakes, local gins, plants and vegetables. A reward of making it down the street is the Exmoor ale stand and, in a damp alley off the main drag, you can catch the plonky plonk sounds of a rickety piano, around which you'll find locals laughing, singing and sipping cider. Tied up high between the buildings is, of course, bunting. To make it down the street is an achievement in itself. It is rammed, cheeks couldn't get closer to jowls. Last year, with a chilli plant in one hand, cakes and a child in another, the reward of a pint of Exmoor Gold at the end of the main street felt just. It's a wonderfully friendly and happy occasion. At least it was. On May Day Bank Holiday Monday this week, there was no sign of the fair down Fore Street. Instead the town's own Silver Street Band, the pottery stall and all the other ingredients of the fair had moved to the recreation ground off what is known as Butts Way. At which point, no disrespect to the stall holders, it just became another English fair in an English field in England. So I sniffed around as to why this had happened. And I heard mutterings of a lack of volunteers, and of beastly passing drivers moaning about related traffic jams and road closures and abusing the stewards. None of which seemed a reason to move the fair until I tracked down a source on the committee who revealed the real reason behind the move. 'This year,' my Milverton mole revealed, 'we were set to be charged £1,500 by the highways department.' There was, they added, 'no charge for the road closure' in previous years. So that was it. The Blob did it. The bureaucratic regime that is Somerset council scratching around to find ways to plug its £300 million property debt and £100 million funding gap; it recently declared a 'financial emergency' due to rising costs. As I have written here recently, it has announced plans to introduce universal parking charges in villages and towns across our part of the world so perhaps this charge was another fruitless attempt to gain miniscule amounts of revenue. Or worse, it was an issue of health and safety, the new costs dreamt up to pay for signage for the re-routing of emergency vehicles, for example. Or indeed to factor in the dangers of so many people congregating in such small spaces. Which is, of course, the whole point, the whole wonderful and unique fun of the occasion and the reason why the knackered antiques, shabby books and pottery gain a certain cachet in that atmosphere. Dare I say it, the music of the Silver Street Band gains a je ne sais quoi when you come across its old geezers strumming their guitars and blowing into their bassoons on Silver Street itself. Sure, there are risks that if you had a heart attack in the middle of that scrum there might be challenges. But as far as I know, there have been no fatalities at the fair and unlike that other street bonanza, The Notting Hill Carnival, Milverton can't compete when it comes to stabbings. It is frightfully expensive when the sky falls on one's head and so our killjoy administrators feel they must plan for this eventuality. Thus another little precious chunk of England, in all its glorious, ancient eccentricity, is cut out by The Blob of bureaucracy and turned to dust. As long as it's in a dry field with plenty of parking or nice indoor shopping centre, your fair is safe. But if you're cheese-rolling, soapbox-racing, nettle-eating, hurling the silver ball or charming worms, if there's any measure of chaotic English fun, beware, The Blob will find a way of banning it. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Incompetent council killjoys have wrecked our ancient and eccentric English fair
Milverton is just a few winding, high-hedged, wild-garlic-banked roads away from us. It's a startlingly pretty west Somerset village of Georgian houses, with a street pattern that dates back to the medieval period, centring around a church. St Michael's stands prominent on the hill, overlooking a settlement that was prominent even at the time of the Domesday Book. There's a village store, a very fine piano tuner and a handsome pub, the latter bang on trend by being currently closed. But it has something that few such villages have – an event that can be traced back to the start of the 1700s. 1708 to be precise. It's called the Milverton Street Fair and it's been a high point of the May Day Bank Holiday Monday for us since we moved here just four years ago. Arrive at the head of the town, near the village shop, and you can see the fair stretching down the straight avenue of Fore Street, at the bottom of which, it turns slowly to the left. It's a magnificent sight with a very English rabble of stalls. You can peruse antiques, second-hand books, cakes, local gins, plants and vegetables. A reward of making it down the street is the Exmoor ale stand and, in a damp alley off the main drag, you can catch the plonky plonk sounds of a rickety piano, around which you'll find locals laughing, singing and sipping cider. Tied up high between the buildings is, of course, bunting. To make it down the street is an achievement in itself. It is rammed, cheeks couldn't get closer to jowls. Last year, with a chilli plant in one hand, cakes and a child in another, the reward of a pint of Exmoor Gold at the end of the main street felt just. It's a wonderfully friendly and happy occasion. At least it was. On May Day Bank Holiday Monday this week, there was no sign of the fair down Fore Street. Instead the town's own Silver Street Band, the pottery stall and all the other ingredients of the fair had moved to the recreation ground off what is known as Butts Way. At which point, no disrespect to the stall holders, it just became another English fair in an English field in England. So I sniffed around as to why this had happened. And I heard mutterings of a lack of volunteers, and of beastly passing drivers moaning about related traffic jams and road closures and abusing the stewards. None of which seemed a reason to move the fair until I tracked down a source on the committee who revealed the real reason behind the move. 'This year,' my Milverton mole revealed, 'we were set to be charged £1,500 by the highways department.' There was, they added, 'no charge for the road closure' in previous years. So that was it. The Blob did it. The bureaucratic regime that is Somerset council scratching around to find ways to plug its £300 million property debt and £100 million funding gap; it recently declared a 'financial emergency' due to rising costs. As I have written here recently, it has announced plans to introduce universal parking charges in villages and towns across our part of the world so perhaps this charge was another fruitless attempt to gain miniscule amounts of revenue. Or worse, it was an issue of health and safety, the new costs dreamt up to pay for signage for the re-routing of emergency vehicles, for example. Or indeed to factor in the dangers of so many people congregating in such small spaces. Which is, of course, the whole point, the whole wonderful and unique fun of the occasion and the reason why the knackered antiques, shabby books and pottery gain a certain cachet in that atmosphere. Dare I say it, the music of the Silver Street Band gains a je ne sais quoi when you come across its old geezers strumming their guitars and blowing into their bassoons on Silver Street itself. Sure, there are risks that if you had a heart attack in the middle of that scrum there might be challenges. But as far as I know, there have been no fatalities at the fair and unlike that other street bonanza, The Notting Hill Carnival, Milverton can't compete when it comes to stabbings. It is frightfully expensive when the sky falls on one's head and so our killjoy administrators feel they must plan for this eventuality. Thus another little precious chunk of England, in all its glorious, ancient eccentricity, is cut out by The Blob of bureaucracy and turned to dust. As long as it's in a dry field with plenty of parking or nice indoor shopping centre, your fair is safe. But if you're cheese-rolling, soapbox-racing, nettle-eating, hurling the silver ball or charming worms, if there's any measure of chaotic English fun, beware, The Blob will find a way of banning it.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Our local shuttered brewery tells the story of Labour's assault on small businesses
With the sunlight streaming into his office, Jonathan Price is doing his best to look cheerful. It's almost 20 years since he purchased Exmoor Ale, a brewery that sat at the peak of the little town of Wiveliscombe in west Somerset, just a few rolling hills away from our home. On top of the filing cabinets and on shelves are the results of his endeavours, bottles of Gold, Stag, Beast and, my favourite, original Exmoor ale, a gloriously smooth session beer. But today the steady wheel of the brewing cycle, the mashing, boiling, cooling and fermenting, is grinding to a halt. 'We've stopped brewing,' he tells me. 'The last beer is coming out of the tanks now and going into the casks.' The brewery is closing and the shutters will go up on an operation that has been in Wiveliscombe since 1979. Exmoor Ale is one of the gems of our local town, a brewing firm that hones the waters off the wilds of the moorlands of west Somerset and north Devon. I fell in love with this small town, known locally as Wivey, when we moved here some four years ago as, in spite of its small size, it held its own against the larger towns and cities of the South West maintaining a butcher's, a good pub, a restaurant, small hotel, a hardware store, a deli, a barber shop and a gun room. But many of these small businesses have struggled, fighting to stay afloat in the wake of Covid, social change and the latest threat, a Labour Government. The latter, specifically, raising the rate of employer National Insurance contributions, which came into effect some four weeks ago, from 13.8 to 15 per cent. Price sent a message on Wednesday this week to his customers. 'Sadly, like many breweries, we have faced some challenging times recently due to the knock-on effects of Covid-19, inflation, market changes and most recently, tax increases. This has meant we need to restructure and close the brewery.' I ask him about those tax increases. 'It's the final straw,' he replies. And indeed it's been the final straw for many other British breweries this year who similarly have had to give employees their P45s and let their vast brewing vats run dry. Recent figures from the Society of Independent Brewers and Associates (SIBA) show that there were 1,715 independent breweries at the start of 2025, compared with 1,815 in January 2024. And, reports SIBA, the drop in overall brewery numbers over the last 12 months is much higher than in recent years. According to SIBA's chief executive Andy Slee, 'The issue for small independent breweries is lack of access to market and rising costs, making it incredibly difficult to remain profitable. Indie brewers can't sell into enough of their local pubs and make enough of a profit to remain viable.' It doesn't help, of course, that their customers are disappearing as pubs continue to close at an average rate of more than 34 each month. It's indicative of the crisis in the hospitality industry. Businesses are in peril. Many – restaurants, cafes and pubs – are still paying off debts from Covid, managing an ongoing staffing crisis and grappling with surging costs. And hospitality chiefs have been begging for help. Yet what was Labour's answer to their cries, their solution to assist the UK's third largest employer, responsible for the jobs of some three million people? In last year's autumn Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves upped employer NICs and increased the national living wage. As trade body Hospitality UK's boss Kate Nicholls put it, the policies, 'left hospitality owners with a sleepless night as they came to terms with the enormous cost they will have to bear from April onwards.' She added: 'The new cost of employing core members of staff is eye-watering – an increase of at least £2,500 [which] is far, far beyond anyone's worst case scenario.' The Government also landed £154 million of extra annual costs on brewers with what's called EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility), basically additional packaging charges. This adds 5p per bottle, another little stinger for struggling pubs whose closure, The British Beer and Pub Association points out, 'last year equated to more than 4,500 job losses'. Thus Labour's policies are now reaping what they sowed. Small businesses such as Exmoor Ale must sip the last drops of their kegs and lock the doors. The Socialist robots spew out their heads-in-the-sands mantras: 'fixing foundations… championing Britain as the best place to grow a business… going further and faster to tackle barriers to investment.' Yet their actual policies, as you would expect from Marxist huggers, swell the public sector and deter entrepreneurs. 'Existing and looming eye-watering business rates and taxes undermines growth and investment which hurts local jobs, communities, and the wider economy,' James Hawkins of the Beer and Pub Association tells me. Starmer, Reeves and Co can spout their disingenuous catchphrases but what they're actually doing is putting a sign above Britain that reads, 'Closing down soon'. As Jonathan Price chats in his office, behind him is a map of Britain with pins indicating the locations of his many customers. He assures me that all is not lost. 'We're going to work with a brewer, Hog's Back, in Surrey. It's an innovative solution to keep the brand alive.' Maybe, but I'm not convinced the water of Surrey is a patch on that of Exmoor. And if I'm going to have a p--s-up in a brewery, I'd rather it was in Wivey than Guildford. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
02-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Our local shuttered brewery tells the story of Labour's assault on small businesses
With the sunlight streaming into his office, Jonathan Price is doing his best to look cheerful. It's almost 20 years since he purchased Exmoor Ale, a brewery that sat at the peak of the little town of Wiveliscombe in west Somerset, just a few rolling hills away from our home. On top of the filing cabinets and on shelves are the results of his endeavours, bottles of Gold, Stag, Beast and, my favourite, original Exmoor ale, a gloriously smooth session beer. But today the steady wheel of the brewing cycle, the mashing, boiling, cooling and fermenting, is grinding to a halt. 'We've stopped brewing,' he tells me. 'The last beer is coming out of the tanks now and going into the casks.' The brewery is closing and the shutters will go up on an operation that has been in Wiveliscombe since 1979. Exmoor Ale is one of the gems of our local town, a brewing firm that hones the waters off the wilds of the moorlands of west Somerset and north Devon. I fell in love with this small town, known locally as Wivey, when we moved here some four years ago as, in spite of its small size, it held its own against the larger towns and cities of the South West maintaining a butcher's, a good pub, a restaurant, small hotel, a hardware store, a deli, a barber shop and a gun room. But many of these small businesses have struggled, fighting to stay afloat in the wake of Covid, social change and the latest threat, a Labour Government. The latter, specifically, raising the rate of employer National Insurance contributions, which came into effect some four weeks ago, from 13.8 to 15 per cent. Price sent a message on Wednesday this week to his customers. 'Sadly, like many breweries, we have faced some challenging times recently due to the knock-on effects of Covid-19, inflation, market changes and most recently, tax increases. This has meant we need to restructure and close the brewery.' I ask him about those tax increases. 'It's the final straw,' he replies. And indeed it's been the final straw for many other British breweries this year who similarly have had to give employees their P45s and let their vast brewing vats run dry. Recent figures from the Society of Independent Brewers and Associates (SIBA) show that there were 1,715 independent breweries at the start of 2025, compared with 1,815 in January 2024. And, reports SIBA, the drop in overall brewery numbers over the last 12 months is much higher than in recent years. According to SIBA's chief executive Andy Slee, 'The issue for small independent breweries is lack of access to market and rising costs, making it incredibly difficult to remain profitable. Indie brewers can't sell into enough of their local pubs and make enough of a profit to remain viable.' It doesn't help, of course, that their customers are disappearing as pubs continue to close at an average rate of more than 34 each month. It's indicative of the crisis in the hospitality industry. Businesses are in peril. Many – restaurants, cafes and pubs – are still paying off debts from Covid, managing an ongoing staffing crisis and grappling with surging costs. And hospitality chiefs have been begging for help. Yet what was Labour's answer to their cries, their solution to assist the UK's third largest employer, responsible for the jobs of some three million people? In last year's autumn Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves upped employer NICs and increased the national living wage. As trade body Hospitality UK's boss Kate Nicholls put it, the policies, 'left hospitality owners with a sleepless night as they came to terms with the enormous cost they will have to bear from April onwards.' She added: 'The new cost of employing core members of staff is eye-watering – an increase of at least £2,500 [which] is far, far beyond anyone's worst case scenario.' The Government also landed £154 million of extra annual costs on brewers with what's called EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility), basically additional packaging charges. This adds 5p per bottle, another little stinger for struggling pubs whose closure, The British Beer and Pub Association points out, 'last year equated to more than 4,500 job losses'. Thus Labour's policies are now reaping what they sowed. Small businesses such as Exmoor Ale must sip the last drops of their kegs and lock the doors. The Socialist robots spew out their heads-in-the-sands mantras: ' fixing foundations … championing Britain as the best place to grow a business… going further and faster to tackle barriers to investment.' Yet their actual policies, as you would expect from Marxist huggers, swell the public sector and deter entrepreneurs. 'Existing and looming eye-watering business rates and taxes undermines growth and investment which hurts local jobs, communities, and the wider economy,' James Hawkins of the Beer and Pub Association tells me. Starmer, Reeves and Co can spout their disingenuous catchphrases but what they're actually doing is putting a sign above Britain that reads, 'Closing down soon'. As Jonathan Price chats in his office, behind him is a map of Britain with pins indicating the locations of his many customers. He assures me that all is not lost. 'We're going to work with a brewer, Hog's Back, in Surrey. It's an innovative solution to keep the brand alive.'
