Popular Beach Buggin 2018 Cancelled after irreconcilable differences with Portsmouth City Council.
The popular BeachBuggin event held annually on Southsea Common for VW enthusiasts will not take place this year, Spotted Portsmouth has learnt. In a statement organisers have blamed irreconcilable differences with Portsmouth City Council. The full statement reads: “Hi Guys, we need to let you know that BeachBuggin 18 will not be going ahead and 1 and I have made the extremely tough decision NOT to continue on with the BeachBuggin Show. Following the meeting with 123 just in helping charities who do good things! Volunteers – we will not be able to use Hayling Island Scout Group to do our parking (which is in fact their Mums & 1) anymore, this is because they are not in the PO1 to PO6 postcode and I quote “not part of Portsmouth. Hayling Scouts have been supporting the show for 6 years and in return for their car parking we make a donation to them which they have used for attending events and jamborees. We have also been told that our Stewards will need car parking qualifications! (we have checked this out and no such qualification exists only for Banksmen on Highways) It was evident that the use of volunteers was not supported at all by PCC and seemed to be completely frowned upon – the bottom line is we simply can’t run this show without volunteers. Show Layout – the council have indicated that they want the show to be gated to restrict footfall! The whole point of the show is it is an 1 show and the public are free to walk on, as are the show attendees. Gating the show brings a whole new range of restrictions that we just aren’t interested in entertaining and would just simply change the atmosphere and show dynamic Costs – the show has always been run on a Not for Profit basis by VOLUNTEERS with the aim of maximising our profit for the benefit of our chosen charity for that year. Three quarters of the profit goes to charity{s} and a quarter retained as working capital for next year’s show so it is completely self-funding. The margins are tight and – we have a turnover of circa £12k per annum of which £4k is spent on advertising and running costs including £800 on 1 – that leaves £6k for our charities – £4.5 k for our sponsored charity, £1.5k for the Amanda Fund (charitable donations for various causes throughout the year) and £2k in reserves – any increase in costs will just wipe us out without significantly increasing the gate price – we aren’t prepared to do that as it is not justifiable. Dates – what a joke this has been! full stop! even after 18 years of holding the show in Portsmouth and for the past 8 years on the same date, the council bump us at the drop of hat, 4 times! This is simply down to money – we get charitable rates for hiring the common compared to other shows that have to pay a commercial rate (20 times higher than the charity rate ). So we will get bumped each time a show wants the dates we have booked! I think you’ll agree that the support of PCC is simply not there. So after 18 really great years and over £85k in donations we are calling it a day – thank you to everybody for all your support, 1 and help over the years – we really have enjoyed every minute of it.
