On Tuesday, the Havre des Pas Beach Festival Committee, a sub-committee of the local residents’ group, announced that the Jersey Beach Festival scheduled to take place on 28 July had been cancelled.
St Helier Constable Simon Crowcroft still wants the festival to go ahead, however, and would like alternative organisers to run it.
A statement released by the committee says that the parish withdrew financial support that was pledged for the festival, forcing them to pull out.
‘The committee would not have undertaken creating such an event if had we known parish support was not going to be forthcoming,’ it says.
‘Therefore, this has left the committee with no option but to cancel this event.
‘The Havre des Pas Jersey Beach Festival Committee would like to reiterate our wholehearted apology to all the businesses who registered to take part and all those who have given up so much of their time, enthusiasm, vision and passion in the creation of this event.
‘We know how important it is to so many. There are also many people to thank and we will be reaching out to you all individually to do so. We feel incredibly let down by the Parish of St Helier.’
In response, Mr Crowcroft said that the organisers failed to follow ‘relatively simple’ steps to secure parish funding for the festival.
‘Money is available for funding but they need to apply through the Community and Youth Trust, which the parish generously funds, and they didn’t go through that relatively simple process,’ he said.
‘So it’s completely wrong to say that the parish won’t fund them if they won’t ask for funding. It’s not rocket science.
‘The second thing is that they wanted to use the parish’s bank account to run the festival but I have been advised by my team that we cannot allow that to happen.
‘I suggested that they they use an event organiser who has a bank account instead but they didn’t want to do that.’
He added that he believed the festival would still go ahead and an alternative organiser could be found.
‘I’m hopeful that someone else will step in and take it forward. It has been a very successful event over the years and I have had to step in before to make sure that it happens,’ he said.
‘I don’t want the message to get out that it has been cancelled.’
Planned activities at the festival included abseiling, cultural walks, watersports and children’s events.
