Reigning Great British Bake Off champion Frances Quinn was on-hand to judge the best cake decoration competition at this year’s Caerphilly Food Festival – the future of which is in doubt.
Llanbradach mum Charlotte Lunn, 32, walked away with the top prize with her Caerphilly Castle-inspired design.
Charlotte, with Frances and daughter Daisy, said she was thrilled to win.
After almost five hours of intense cake decorating, she said: “I’m tired, cold but elated.”
Charlotte, who was enthusiastically supported by her husband Tom, explained the chocolate-flavoured cake was inspired by the tale of Gruffudd the Fair’s affair with Princess Alice of Angouleme – the wife of Gilbert de Clare – better known today as the Green Lady ghost of Caerphilly Castle.
This year’s festival attracted an estimated 9,000 visitors, but the future of the Caerphilly town centre event has been cast in doubt – again because of funding cuts.
A spokeswoman for Caerphilly County Borough Council said the event was a major success and that the authority was looking forward to the town’s next events – the Caerphilly 10k road race in June as well as July’s Big Cheese.
However, she added: “Moving forward, this council like others right across the country will have to make some difficult decisions in order to make further savings in excess of £14 million over the next two years.
“We are very well aware of the economic benefits that major events such as these can bring to our town centres, and these, together with other discretionary services provided by the council will be considered over the coming months as part of the budget setting process.”
The commentators from Caerphilly council`s, over inflated, out of realistic community control, ( or any supervisory control if it comes to that) arrogant, and disfuctional, events department, who decided that in excess of 9,000 attended this food event are, frankly, delusional.
The event was, what it was, i.e. no more than a collection of stalls and mobile units selling food at over inflated prices, the money taken by these `transitional traders` is now out of reach of any local traders or the local economy, i.e. taken on the day, pocketed, and removed from the borough, mostly, to be banked hundreds of miles away.
The sooner Caerphilly council, under Labour, reduce the `runaway` budgets of the events department the better, and the consideration and confirmation to cancel this event for the future can not come soon enough, it does NOTHING for the local economy, it does nothing for the employment of local labour, it does not pay rates to trade in the town, and it causes some of the worse, proportionately, disruption to local residents than most other events, it caused almost total gridlock around the town, as far afield as the Corbets Roundabout, to the North, and the Garden Centre Roundabout to the south, Natgarw Road was impassable most of the day as was Crescent Road the main exit for all town centre residents.
The entire event was badly managed, , from the appalling unenforced parking arrangements for shop workers in the town, to the total disregard by events officers of Caerphilly Borough council to the concerns expressed ( not for the first time) of the Town Residents in respect to the disruption the events caused them, and was causing them.
So the sooner this and other disorganised town centre `events` are got rid of, or, that the concerns of all residents and traders in the town are taken into account, properly, and, in accordance with good consultation practices, the better. The current arrogant and dismissive attitude of senior events staff to seriously made residents concerns is unacceptable.