Royal British Legion call off Remembrance Parade

[Stephen Morgan]

This is from our local newspaper the South Wales Argus, and it's been blowing up for the last week or so.

"Crunch talks to save remembrance parade
A last ditch meeting will take place tomorrow in a bid to save a Gwent town's Remembrance Sunday parade.

Veterans from Newbridge will meet members of Caerphilly council later today after members of the Royal British Legion vowed to call off the parade last week.

Caerphilly council said that in order to comply with health and safety regulations, roads around Parry’s Square, Newbridge, should be closed for an hour-and-a-quarter on November 9 as the 100-strong parade assembles.

But members of the Royal British Legion Newbridge branch said the march and service normally take around two hours and the small time scale the council has allowed them would not even give them enough time to form for the two-minute silence.

Members last week decided to call off the march, which will make it the first time since 1926 that they have not been involved, saying the restrictions were an insult to the many men who have fought and died for their country.

Former RAF man and president of the Newbridge branch of the Royal British Legion, Bill Pinney, said residents were “up in arms” about the council’s proposed restrictions on the parade and said he hoped the matter would be resolved at today’s meeting.

He said: “This has gone on long enough. If the conditions on the parade are not what we consider to be honourable to the many who died and those who are fighting today then we would be unable to march with it.

“But if they are sensible and say go ahead as normal then the march will take place and hopefully that will be the end of it.”

A spokesman for Caerphilly council confirmed it had agreed another meeting and said it was looking to resolve the situation as a matter of urgency."

I think it's shameful that the council wanted to re-route the parade in the first place. It's held on a Sunday for goodness sake, the small town isn't exactly busy with traffic on any other Sunday, why would this particular Sunday be any different? Parry Square in Newbridge is off the main road anyway, and residents take it as a matter of course that they don't park their cars in their street on that particular day due to the parade.
Caerphilly Borough Council should put this in proper perspective and give creedence to something that happens all over the country on Remembrance Sunday. God help us all if the Queen decided that due to her age, and Health and Safety concerns, she didn't turn up at the The Cenotaph on that day.

[Rob McCow]

It seems really crazy - an example of petty minded bueracracy. Local councils should bend over backwards to let these things happen.

It sounds like they've had one fairly sensible rule for road closures and then applied it without thinking. It'd be really sad if they couldn't make their parade.

[Larry]

It seems really crazy - an example of petty minded bueracracy. .

agreed - Rememberance Sunday is some thing sacred and these councilers should be ashamed of them selves for what they are trying to do.

[Captain Tancredi]

Is it Newbridge or Cowbridge where the local council has also taken flak for spending a couple of thousand quid on ceremonial headgear for female councillors so they can process in their official robes?