BRASS on the Grass may cease to continue unless Bude-Stratton Town Council can come up with a way of funding the event —councillors are hoping local businesses may come forward to show their support to keep it going.

At a meeting of the town council’s recreation committee last Thursday, chairman Cllr Frank Partridge said that for the last eight or nine years a local man had organised the event, getting bands to come to Bude from various towns and villages, including Launceston, Camelford, St Gennys and many more.

The trouble he is finding now is that he is struggling to entice bands to come and feels he needs to offer them an engagement fee.

Cllr Partridge asked town clerk Donna James if there was such a grant within the council to allow for a small fee to be paid to attract bands and keep the event going.

She said it would not fit into any of the council’s grants policies, but the financial officer Ms Angela Weare-Gifford could look into whether the council has any funds available to support it, but that could only be an option if the council was to take on the running of the event itself — and in turn would mean using the funds to ‘hire’ the bands to come and perform.

Cllr Partridge said: “I think if we can find a way of supporting the Brass on the Grass event we should as it is a good thing for Bude and benefits the town.”

Cllr Alan Biggs, having read the report in the Post last week about the two groups who benefitted from Tesco’s ‘Bags of Help’ initiative, said the town council should look into ‘tapping into’ a similar levy if possible.

He said: “The 5p bag charity grant piece that was in the paper said Tesco were giving two groups about £8,000 each towards community projects.

“All supermarkets are charging 5p for a plastic bag now and they can’t keep that money for profit so we should try and find out what the likes of Morrisons and Lidl in Bude are doing along those lines. It’s certainly worth enquiring about anyway.”

Cllr Peter Moores agreed: “I think it would definitely be a good thing to look into it if the clerk wouldn’t mind. I mean, it would be good kudos for the supermarkets if they were going to support a local cause like that.”

Miss James said she would contact Lidl and Morrisons to find out if they run a similar 5p bag scheme and if so how the town council would go about applying for such a grant.

Cllr Partridge said he would welcome any local businesses who feel they could support Brass on the Grass to make themselves known to the town council.