Hospitality venues 'insulted' at lack of consultation and involvement with Darwen Day

Darwen Day, which was held on Saturday, was the first major event to be staged in the town since the start of the pandemic, but several businesses within the hospitality sector say they were overlooked, with the event's organisation being handed over to a company that has no permanent presence in Darwen.

The revival of the once popular Darwen Day, which was abandoned several years ago, was this year organised by Let’s Make, Crafty Vintage, Darwen Town Council and Blackburn with Darwen Council, however, Suzanne Halliwell, who runs Dolly's Tearoom, and Gary Perkins, who runs six businesses in Darwen town centre, said they were not asked to be involved in the event, and only found out about the festival at the end of June.

Suzanne Halliwell who runs Dolly's Tearoom

Mrs Halliwell said: "Darwen Day was brought to us by Crafty Vintage, a company that has no involvement with our town and who did no engagement with businesses other than the market traders.

"Darwen businesses were not asked to get involved in what should have been a celebration of our town and community.

"The Bank bar, which fronts on to the town square was not allowed to have a presence and we at Dolly’s Tearoom Darwen were not asked to get involved.

"In fact, the first we knew about the day was a Facebook post sometime last week.

"Only the market-based businesses had anything to do with it.

"It's an absolute joke and an insult after the year we have just had.

"Events aren’t just meant to benefit a select few, they’re supposed to help us all.

"It should have been a celebration of the whole town and we all should have been asked to get involved."

Mrs Halliwell now harbours concerns about whether town centre businesses will be consulted over their involvement with other major events, including Darwen Live and future food festivals, which she claims to have had no recent communication about.

However, Darwen South ward’s Cllr Kevin Connor, said Darwen Day was not supposed to be an event which invited representatives from various businesses to host stalls in the market square for example, but a festival to celebrate the town centre, encouraging people to travel to Darwen, in the hope that the increased footfall would result in people visiting local businesses.

He said: "Unfortunately the weather was not on our side, so people may not have stayed within the town centre as we'd hoped.

"We advertised the event early, putting posters around the town, writing about it on social media and our website and yes, Crafty Vintage did organise a huge part of it, but they are a professional business, and organising events like this during Covid has been very difficult.

"Lots of market traders were involved, and we wanted to encourage people to come down and then use the businesses in the town centre.

"We can't involve every business at every event, and there will be plenty more events in the future."

Gary Perkins, who runs Taps, Bank bar, Spitfire and several other venues in Darwen

Gary Perkins, who runs The Bank bar, Taps bar and several other hospitality venues within Darwen, said it sometimes feels as though market traders and hospitality businesses are pitted against each other, and that the council needed to do more to bring both trades together.

He said: "I lost thousands of pounds when the pavement licence was taken away as soon as indoor hospitality was allowed to open again as I couldn't have people sitting outside anymore, and then at the weekend I wasn't allowed to put tables out on the market square to attract potential customers.

"It looked great at the weekend and I've nothing against Crafty Vintage, but we want to be involved in events like this, we want to have our say.

"There just seems to be a lack of communication between the council and the hospitality sector and we could really benefit from having a representative within the council who can voice our needs and get our questions answered.

"I've had countless meetings with those who are responsible for events in the market square and there are a number of venues who would love to host events themselves, and want to do it off their own backs.

"We want to involve everyone, get the market traders involved too as it sometimes feels like it's them against us."

Cllr Connor said it had been a difficult year for many businesses, but the council were committed to helping as much as they could with various events coming up in the latter part of the year.

He added: "If local businesses want to sponsor some of the events then the town council will of course welcome this."