Stalemate between councils over 'unsafe' electrics puts Biggleswade market events at risk

Electrical issues in Biggleswade’s Market Square including blown fuses need to be resolved as a matter of urgency, the town’s mayor has warned.

Running repairs were carried out before the town council’s Christmas events, but the situation has deteriorated further, a meeting heard.

Officers and town councillors want to stage regular Bigg Eats events in the town centre involving a small number of food traders and potentially some music.

It had been hoped to have a summer programme this year, but this has yet to materialise, a town centre management committee meeting was told.

The town council’s place shaping manager Isaac Lord explained a third party organiser is “passionate about running a big series of events in Biggleswade”.

Around a dozen traders could potentially be involved, “some of whom attend similar events in neighbouring towns”.

His report to the committee warned: “Stalemate with Central Bedfordshire Council on the responsibility of repairing the electrical infrastructure of the Market Square. The grid is slowly deteriorating and becoming unsafe with reports of fuses having blown as recently as May.

“Officers would feel unsafe advising traders where to plug in and so it would be necessary to hire an electrician for each event to monitor.”

Town councillor Dan Albone asked: “Is there anything we can do, or is it CBC’s responsibility? This issue sounds quite alarming.”

Mayor Mark Foster told the committee: “We need to resolve it as we can’t have a situation where we’re concerned about a safety element.”

Town councillor Duncan Strachan said: “It’s not acceptable we’re in this situation. CBC tell us it owns the Market Square, so it’s CBC’s responsibility.

“If work is needed, we should make sure we get the money back from CBC. We can’t have a situation where the electrics are unsafe.”

Deputy mayor Mark Knight described it as “appalling” saying: “This was first raised at finance and general purposes committee last July, where there was a fairly clear resolution passed.

“We said use reserves unless we can get Central Beds to fix it. So 11 months has passed and there’s a report saying it’s potentially unsafe. Basically it’s stalemate between officers at two councils. It’s simply unacceptable.

“I’d like an urgent report to members in the next week stating how this will be addressed because I don’t want anyone to be injured because either council is negligent.

“When language like this is in a report and it’s been outstanding for 11 months I don’t see how we’re not negligent.”

The town council’s head of governance and strategic partnerships Karim Hosseini said: “There was urgent remedial action from our electrical supplier, not of a lasting nature but an improvement. Since then there’s been some degradation.

“We’ve mapped the various infrastructure, so we can still run an event using specific points in that framework.

“We’ll raise this during our meeting with CBC’s senior management team on Wednesday (June 28).”

Councillor Knight suggested a Thursday evening with fewer food traders and possibly a busker in August as a pilot event, which the committee unanimously agreed.