St George's events in city scaled down

St George's Day celebrations will be dramatically scaled down in Wolverhampton this year, dismayed organisers admitted today.

Lack of funding and fears the city's Queen Square will still be out of action due to a water fountain project, already eight months behind schedule, are blamed for scuppering celebrations.

Organisers said activities to celebrate England's national day on April 23 would be "extremely low key" after it emerged the budget for the event ran to just £5,000.

Last year patriotic music rang out as Market Square was decorated with rows of red, white and blue bunting, and musicians entertained. English sausages and red roses were handed out.

Liberal Democrat councillor Malcolm Gwinnett, helping to organise this year's event with the council's outdoor events team, said today: "It is going to be very low key this year.

"It is certainly not because we don't want to celebrate and it is much to my dismay because I had got a lot of wonderful ideas.

"With the climate the way it is we can't go asking the council for lots of money so we only have a budget of around £5,000.

"There is also the problem with not knowing if Queen Square will be ready so it is very difficult. Even so, there is a promise there will be far more next year."

News followed West Bromwich's parade being axed due to fears of infiltrataion by extremists

Wolverhampton Labour leader, Councillor Roger Lawrence, said it was "disappointing" events would be scaled back but he admitted that he had faced a "headache" in the past organising the celebrations.

"I got a lot of stick because it felt like nothing you did was right," he said. "If you held the events on the actual day and it fell in the middle of the week people complained, and if you moved them to a weekend, people still complained. We really need people to put forward their suggestions so we can really celebrate St George's Day in the future."