2 thoughts on “Kimberley Valetine’s Festival 2022 – Latest Event Information including Who’s on When and Where!”

1. 

   Matthew Cordon

   February 11, 2022, 7:15 pm

   This event has been ill thought out due to the use of plastic helium balloons, bright lights being shone all over the place from the cemetery hill, and fireworks displays each night, and as such has also been a huge misuse of taxpayer money for an insignificant holiday.

   The balloons are a hazard to the local environment, being made of plastic they can choke wildlife and livestock if they blow away, and get tangled in trees and hedges, as well as pollute soil.

   Lights being shone across peoples windows is intrusive and essentially forces people to take part against their will in this event. It also unnecessarily increases light pollution and energy use, fuelling the demand for fossil fuels and disturbing local wildlife, especially since the lights are beaming across parks and other dark spaces where wildlife finds refuge.

   We are in an ecological crisis and climate crisis, and not only have the council barely done their part to address these issues , but are actively making things worse for the sake of encouraging people spend their money on useless holiday themed items.

   This has been poorly thought through and these issues need to be addressed for the next time an event like this is held

   1. 

      Council

      February 19, 2022, 4:07 pm

      Thank you for your comments. We will take them on board when planning future events in Kimberley. However, we would dispute your observation that the event was poorly thought through.

      The event was funded by the Government’s Welcome Back Fund, which was in turn funded by the European Union, and was designed to help local businesses recover following 2 years of disrupted trading due to the Covid pandemic. The goal of the event was to increase footfall to businesses during what is normally a very quiet time of year, and in this respect the event was very successful, based on feedback from local businesses. None of Kimberley Town Council’s funds were spent on this event.
      There is always a trade-off when supporting or hosting local events, between the environmental impact of any goods or services purchased vs. the benefits to the community. As you point out there was an environmental impact from lighting, fireworks and helium balloons. We are particularly conscious of litter, and crisp packets, face masks and dog faeces are the main ones at the moment. Kimberley Town Council now has a strong focus on reducing its environmental impact, recently switching to 100% renewable power, buying services and goods locally, and re-using whatever we can. Regarding the specific items you mentioned: the lighting was intended to be a trial to see whether we can reduce use of non-energy-efficient Christmas lighting and fireworks for public events; the fireworks themselves were deliberately non-commercial and – as you will have noted – very short in duration; the helium balloons were a disposable item, and we will consider alternatives in the future. We already try to do this, for example we are re-using wreaths for successive Remembrance Days. For any disposable items that were used, they were collected in as soon as possible after the event.

      You mentioned the impact of the lighting shining into houses. Our expectation on this front was that most people would have their curtains closed in the middle of winter, in part to reduce their own environmental impact. If a similar event is repeated, we would be able to modify the lighting to avoid impacting residents adversely. You haven’t mentioned where you live so we can’t guarantee we can address the impact on yourself; if you let us know we’ll take this into account for any future events.

      Part of the rationale for a local event was to give people a reason to walk to local celebrations, and not drive or get the bus into surrounding towns or Nottingham.

      Overall, the vast majority of residents were delighted by the weekend and favourable comments outweighed the handful of critical comments massively. Many residents and businesses expressed a desire to see this event annually, and we have a feeling this inaugural Valentines event will spread to other towns in the UK.

      The Town Council does believe it is important to host and support local community activities – Kimberley would be a less agreeable place to live for all of us without community-based events, and we do agree they should be run as environmentally efficient as possible. This was the first time we’ve run an event of this type and there will always be things we can learn and improve on, so thank you for your feedback, we’ll take this into account for future events.

      Kimberley Town Council
      18/02/22

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