Mystery surrounds the disappearance of a planned production of Hands and Great Al at the White Elephant Enclosure. Originally due to take place at the WEE in December it was rescheduled due to a surfeit of pantomimes.
However the official reason given was that there had been a lot of interest from schools and educational settings who, it was claimed, would most likely be making block bookings for pupils. It was believed that the traditional ‘Easter Pantomime’ would have more success if it were held during the March half term, when schoolchildren weren’t at school.
Whilst cancellation of events at the WEE due to poor ticket sales is nothing new, this one is slightly different, because Smalltown and Dullbridge (SaD) Town Council paid a deposit of £1500 to the organiser.back in August 2023. A further £120 was then spent on producing posters for the event.
The performance had been arranged by the Re-enactment Theatre Group, a private company who hold regular classes at the WEE where, for a fee, your offspring can learn to become actors. The group benefits from Community User rates, which would suggest that, like the Smalltown Pantomime Society, it’s a Not-for-Profit organisation. It isn’t.
Staff and Councillors at Hayloft Road are seemingly unaware of the Subsidy Control Act 2022, where rules state that local government funding can only be given if it is ‘in the public interest, address a market failure or equity concern’.
None of which conditions apply in these instances and means that offering preferential terms and paying out to a private business to host a performance demonstrates a lack of’ ‘proper controls, (which) subsidies can cause economic harm or distortive effects. Subsidies can give recipients an unfair advantage over their competitors or be an inefficient use of public money if they do not bring about net positive change’.
So what of the £1620 spent by SaD Town Council to secure the performances? No sign yet of the money being returned, hopefully it wasn’t a non-refundable deposit, but given the business sense of the WEE Mismanagement Committee we can probably kiss goodbye to that sum. Another waste of Tax Payer money.