Row derails train show

An event which brings thousands of people into Kidderminster has been cancelled amid a row over a "lost" booking.

Wyre Forest Model Railway Club say it booked the main arena at the Forest Glades Centre, in Bromsgrove Street, last May in preparation for its annual exhibition in March.

But bosses at the centre deny the booking was made – and the venue has now been hired out to another organisation for the March date.

Railway club members claim changes in staff at the centre, where the exhibition has been held for 15 years, had caused their booking to be mislaid.

And they have been unable to find an alternative venue to host an event on the scale of the exhibition. The date cannot be changed because exhibitors had already committed to other events, they say.

Exhibition manager for the club Andy Mullard said they had been left with no choice but to cancel the event next year.

"There is a bone of contention. We made the booking in May but the arena says this did not happen and as a result another event has been booked for the same time.

"To say we were upset was an understatement. This would have been our 35th year and our 16th at Forest Glades. It is a big event and brings in thousands of people.

"We have held this event at the venue for decades we are hardly likely not to put in the booking."

Stuart Booton, contracts manager for the area said: "A booking was simply not made for the exhibition.

"Our bookings are all done in writing and through contract and there was none made by the club."