Northcroft Park this morning following the departure of most of the fair vehicles. I hope the fee they pay for using the park covers the restitution costs. Has it been this bad before?

Same in Lower way as well!

The entire fair should have been cancelled.

Time for it to be relocated or just cancelled. The 'Park' is not usable now for a kickabout by local kids and won't recover for several months.

I imagine the whole of that area will need to be ploughed up, harrowed, rolled, re-seeded etc. Anyone know when the flood prevention works are due to start?

A bit of an extreme comparison IMO.

I don't see trenches, barbed wire or 1000s of dead soldiers like the Somme

Like a ploughed field maybe

The surrounding roads are still caked in mud as well.

It does always seem to recover but this year has been exceptionally wet so we shouldn't be surprised. Fact is, we have a large area in town that could easily serve as a venue for the fair. It is a bit of a high spot in the local calendar mainly for the younger age group so I wouldn't like to see it banned but the Market place and Northbrook Street might be considered for future years. Problem there though is that the Saturday market may need relocted for the one day.

Yes, it has been like that before, and the ground recovers amazingly in a short time. Nature, you see......

And the Wharf, seems reasonable to me, I hate the fair but lots of other people seem to enjoy it.

That would be a pretty sensible alternative and all the services already in place.

Noted.

An update from WBC - it'll be like that for a while, it seems: http://www.westberks.gov.uk/index.aspx?art...865189784330000

Don't want to be picky here, but it's just a bit of mud.

It is now.

It was a wide open area of grass for the use of those who live in Newbury.

The fair takes place for the enjoyment of a number of citizens. The Council hold the operators to account for damage to the surface. Part of the area will be a construction site, so not all the repair work will be done yet. Problem with any of that?

aah.. the old "That's the way it's always been done, so why should it change?" strategy...

The way the immediate area has been developed over the past decades surely means it's time that a more suitable location was found for the fair. Stroud Green would be better (although that's common land isn't it?). The 'green area' is as big and there's convenient parking nearby.

To have this circus of very large vehicles, trailers and all other sorts of machinery squeezing along this tight residential cul-de-sac twice a year, together with the large numbers of visitors it attracts is a little too much and a serious inconvenience for residents and visitors to the leisure centre. Everything comes to an end. Time for this to move on.

And yes, this year's damage will be paid for but I don't think the local resident give a monkey's - they would rather it didn't need to be repaired in the first place...

By the same token those stupid pop festivals in Reading and places should be banned. Think Victoria Park is bad - see the mess these things leave. Much better if we all stay in and watch the box.

A right state, I expect this will not recover until mid next year when it dries out a fair bit and they can re seed the grass.

Presumably same applies to racecourses, football pitches and the like. Not convinced we haven't got the horticultural expertise on tap - after all the racecourse is just down the road and if memory serves me right that's grass.

I didn't see any dead soldiers when I was last in the Somme - lots of mud though.

I don't understand the comparison. Do HGVs drive over the racecourse then? They don't even let the horses run if the going is too heavy......

Horses can do just as much damage and there are other examples where a little ground work quickly restores what often seem irrecoverable situations.

I'd like to see the horses that can do the damage that has been done to Northcroft......

Nobody is saying that it's irrecoverable and I don't doubt that Nature will lend it's hand and see that the area is back and usable at some time in the near (or not so near) future, but it IS unnecessary and it does happen at the wrong time of the year for that recovery to be a rapid recovery.

Damage happens every year at Glastonbury and the like and I imagine the recovery is pretty quick because of the time of year it occurs. BUT those music festivals take place with the full support of the landowners and don't impact greatly on surrounding residents. The fact that local kids can't kick a ball around the weeks after the music festival ends is of no consequence because they couldn't generally do that before anyway.


With Goldwell Park there may be permission from the Town Council to use it (assuming they maintain it?) but the local kids are not going to be able to use it for a kick about for quite some time afterwards and they WERE able to use it beforehand.

Anyway I'm off to help gather the horses in from the park.....

(i agree it's not on the Somme level of mud frolics)

OK - you've convinced me. Loved the witty final comment!

*edit* I failed at edit post

^ This

What do you expect to happen if you drag a convoy of trailers across a muddie field.

There. I fixed it for ya.