EDL protest in Dudley: £25k cost of staffing and cleaning up after demo
Around £25,000 was spent on staffing and cleaning up after the English Defence League protest brought Dudley town centre to a standstill.
But the total bill will be higher as Dudley Council and the police continue to count up the money spent on managing the event held by the EDL.
The £25,000 was paid out for workers to put up and manage control barriers as well as cleaning up following the activity.
Council leader, Councillor Pete Lowe, said he believed the total cost will be less than the costs inflicted by the party's previous protest in 2010.
It comes as business owners joined a campaign to boost trade in the wake of the demonstrations with an extra shopping day on Sunday.
Car parking charges will be scrapped for the day and free entertainment will be laid on during the day to encourage shoppers to come into Dudley.
Many town centre shops and organisations boarded up and closed their premises including the Fountain Arcade losing hundreds of pounds in business.
Shop owners have spoken out about their financial losses after closing up for the day and shoppers stayed away.
Sebastian Darlak, aged 29, who owns Crepe Station Cafe said said he lost £400 on the day due to closing on his busiest trading day of the week.
"There was no point opening, where was the trade going to come from? There were no people around," he said.
"I lost about £400, which is half a week's trade, because of that day.
"We're not going to be able to get back what we lost. We've only been open 14 months. This day has really affected us."
Mohammad Sharif, who is owner of Sharif and Sons supermarket in King Street, which was directly opposite where the EDL first gathered, added: "It is our main shopping day, we had to lay all our workers off.
"We thought we might catch up our trade on Sunday but were nowhere near."
Councillor Lowe said: "It will take the coming weeks and months to establish the full council costs if we also take into account all of the officers' time, working in partnership with the police, to prepare for the protest.
"Due to different policing plans, which required less council fencing and saw far less damage caused in the town, the cost of barriers and clean-up should be less than the previous two EDL protests in Dudley, which totalled around £110,000.
"These council costs are completely separate to the police costs which will again be a huge drain on the public purse as every penny spent on this kind of activity is a frustrating and unnecessary waste of limited resources.
"The costs to local businesses, who were forced to sacrifice a busy day's trading, will again be very significant but we are working to minimise this loss by staging an event this Sunday in the town where we are encouraging people to support local shops by providing free car parking and free entertainment."
