Leader of town council says Bridgwater Carnival should be expanded to make most of tourism

After attending the recent Sedgemoor Business Conference, Cllr Smedley said there was an abundance of opportunity to boost tourism and culture in the town, and felt the carnival was a prime example.

“Bridgwater Carnival really is something special, other places would pay good money to have something like it in their town, but we already have it and we ought to make more of it,” Cllr Smedley said.

“We have a massively popular cultural event, totally and originally created here in our town which people travel for miles to see one night in November. 

“We should extend that for a weekend or more. Now we have six hotels coming we can turn that into a ‘Festival of Carnival’ and keep those tourists and that money in our town for that much longer.”

However the proposal was met with some scepticism by Bridgwater Guy Fawkes Carnival Committee’s Chris Hocking, who felt it would be difficult to make the event any bigger.

“It is already a weekend event as we have the fireworks on the Friday at St Matthew’s Field as well as activities and events on the Saturday through the town before the main procession,” Mr Hocking said. 

“We can’t make the event any bigger as it is already a huge job for all of the clubs to get their carts ready in time for the procession.”

Bridgwater Carnival has impact in the town all year round as the various clubs host fundraising events, work on their carts for the following year and host the ever-impressive Carnival Concerts in October.

Sedgemoor District Council's official carnival representative Cllr Gill Slocombe said she was 'amazed' by Cllr Smedley's comments.

"I find it a quite amazing comment from the leader of the town council saying carnival should be bigger," she said.

"It is clear that Cllr Smedley perhaps hadn't realised we have had a carnival weekend now since our change to the Saturday quite a few years ago. Carnival has a massive following and great support which boosts tourism."