WEYMOUTH and Portland Pride’s request for an additional £10,000 to help fund its debut festival has been denied, throwing the future of some of its events into uncertainty.

While it emphasised support for the event, the Weymouth BID board denied Pride organisers the extra funding.

The board has already given £10,000 to the event organisers.

Pride will now have to seek funding elsewhere to cover the costs of planned events.

The three-day festival – the borough's first Pride event which celebrates inclusion and diversity – is due to be held in Weymouth's Radipole Park from July 26-28.

Regarding the declined request for extra funding, Pride Chairman Jamie Crage said: “We haven’t so far received any reasons, but we are gratefully for the £10,000 we did receive.

“It puts us in a slight difficult position.

“It means we need to contact more sponsors and more businesses so we can deliver the whole weekend.”

He added that the lack of extra funds may force them to reconsider some of the events.

“We were led to believe the additional funding would be there for us back in January, which we planned to use that for the road closures for the parade, fireworks and the open air cinema event.

The BID cited local business reasons for opposing the extra funding request.

Richard Lamb, BID Chairman, said: “Weymouth BID is very proud to be supporting the exciting Pride event plans, but after close consideration of the information provided to us, we did not feel able to provide the additional funding.

“This is because the Board are of the opinion that the bars run at the event should contribute to the overall revenue and that spending more of our local businesses’ levies on an event that is happening on an already busy weekend in the summer holidays would not be a wise decision.”

The BID noted that the Pride event falls during Weymouth’s peak trading season.

A BID spokesman said: “The Pride team are working extremely hard to bring this event to life, but it must be noted that this event falls right in Weymouth’s peak trading season, resulting in road closures on the first weekend of the school holidays.

“The BID’s agreed strategy is to support events during the shoulder season and to create tangible improvements across the town ‘look and feel’ through infrastructure improvements rather than just events.”

Under original plans #PrideByTheSeaside would start with a free Dorset Echo-backed event – The Family Fun Night from 4pm-9.30pm on the Friday which includes an open-air cinema.

The Pride parade sponsored by Wessex FM is on the Saturday. At Radipole Park there will be a day of music, cabaret acts & DJ sets on the main stage. There will also be a silent disco, children’s entertainment, food stalls and bars.

There will be a second day of music and entertainment on the Sunday, culminating in a fireworks finale on Weymouth Beach.

Musical acts include former member of boy band JLS, Aston Merrygold, boy band Misunderstood, 1990s dance acts Booty Luv & Big Brovaz, and Abba Revival.

In addition, organisers are working with businesses to create 'pop-up Pride' events.

More information can be found at weymouth-pride.co.uk

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