There has been one issue for a while that has been frustrating me when it comes to this whole My Melton lark. No it’s not the DM from Karen who got triggered that I used a naughty word or the brick pie that somehow was both raw and burnt at the same time when I judged the British Pie Awards. Nope it’s the council, specifically the council’s inability/lack of desire to acknowledge and support the borough’s after-dark economy.

It’s an issue that I’ve been meaning to discuss for a while. I have the multiple drafts from across the last year on the backend of WordPress. So why did I publish it now? Well the Sherif’s Shindig was part of the reason but the biggest prompt was someone saying if it was organised by the Stockyard, everyone would know about it as opposed to yesterday’s event that hardly knew about. Even I was like “oh 💩, that was today wasn’t it”, when I saw Pete from Melton Gig Guide post a video. As I said to the person making the comment, I don’t agree with that statement but that statement did prompt me to write this post.

Let’s start with why I disagree with that person’s statement because it also ties into the Stockyard/rest of the town centre divide that I believe wouldn’t exist if the council did the barest of basics. This person argued that only The Stockyard’s events got pushed by offical promotional bodies. The truth is, they aren’t the only entity and that Town Estate’s events are pushed just as much by Discover Melton (the Council’s official promotional body) as the Stockyard’s are. Infact, they make up about 75-80% of what is being pushed. With the events by the BID, HistoryFare, Belvoir Castle and Twinlakes making up the other 20-25%. Are you starting to see the problem here? If you don’t I’m going to highlight it further with an example that I used in a script I’m currently drafting about why people seem to be angry at The Stockyard and how a large % of reasons why people are angry are actually the council’s fault not the guys at The Stockyard. 

PieFest and the Summer Folk Festival always fall on the same weekend. That being the first weekend in August. Discover Melton did a coming soon post on their blog kinda like what I do with my videos but in text form. You can find the post at https://discovermelton.com/meltons-summer-highlights/ if you wanna read the whole thing. If you don’t, here is their description of both events in said blog. For PieFest Discover Melton said” celebrate the nation’s favorite dish at PieFest, featuring sweet and savory pies, workshops, and expert panels. SpiritFest offers tastings and sales of gin, vodka, rum, whisky, and more. This event is a paradise for food and drink enthusiasts”. As for the folk festival? It was a singular bullet saying it was taking place on the 3rd/4th August and said bullet point didn’t even mention it was happening in the town centre.

You may think that this is an isolated incident and if the pubs, bars, cafes and restaurants that make up the borough simply told Discover Melton about their various workshops and gigs that they’d be featured right. Nope. Enter the outright dismissal of pub based events.

This screenshot is from the page on Discover Melton’s website that allows a business/event organiser to submit an event for the calendar.  Said calendar is normally then ran through an AI chatbot and turned into a series of posts. I’m not anti-AI BTW, Blaze is my go-to when I need ideas on how to tie a TikTok Video to one of the trending creator search insights topics. My issues boil down to 2 things:

1. Discover Melton’s supposed role is just as much about getting people to live here as it is for tourists to visit so why would one not have community specific events?
2. Things like quiz nights, club nights, etc. tend to be hosted in the borough’s pubs. So by setting this criteria, the goalposts have changed from “oh we just didn’t know about the pub/bar’s event, that’s not our fault” to “oh that pub/bar doesn’t have suitable events for this platform, that’s not our fault”.

Except it is their fault. They made the rules. Whoever is behind the accounts/websites aren’t going to where they need to. I’ve tagged them when I post my guides and they haven’t shared a single one. Infact, once upon a time they actually attempted to do their own version of my what’s on guides. Attempt being the keyword here. For instance take last August bank holiday weekend, I posted my guide on the 20th August and tagged Discover Melton in the comments. Despite me tagging them, they still missed out 3/4s (and that’s me being kind) of the entertainment lineup when they did their version on the 23rd. It’s one thing to copy someone else’s content and not give them the proper credit, that’s a crappy risk that every content creator has to face everytime they post something unless they have sufficient money/lawyers. It’s another to copy said thing and somehow make it a worst version despite the original creator giving you an open goal and prime Jamie Vardy. Take my guides out of the equation, they aren’t looking at places like Melton Gig Guides, the pubs/bars socials (which TBF, around 85% are doing quite well at posting, you just have the odd one letting the side down but that’s the same with any sector not just the after-dark trade), etc. It’s one thing to have a lack of knowledge about the trade, it’s another to not even make an effort to learn about it.

So we’ve established that their promotion is heavily weighted towards people within the council bubble but is that the only issue I have with the council when it comes to the after-dark economy? NOPE. Not at all. I have multiple.

First up parking fees. Cabinet voted to increase them in November.  Most of these fees are going up by 20%. What I don’t think anyone behind the decision has realised is that these increases  are making people more inclined to shop online. Amazon Prime is £8.99 a month or £95 a year assuming you pay the monthly option, Prime Membership is less than 1 trip to town a week that is 2 hours or more. That’s for unlimited next day delivery and you’re able to order at any time of day as opposed to going into town where you’re limited to set hours. Places like Shein offer free delivery if you spend over £39 on an order. It is a sad state if affairs nationally when it is cheaper to get something delivered online that it is to get the same thing in town which gives you the option to go to a cafe/pub/event/etc. Our parking fees were not competitive prior to this upcoming increase and they are even less so now. Now I know what you’re thinking, this shouldn’t affect the after-dark economy in town because of the free parking after 6pm but it does. The only after-dark venue that isn’t open to the public before 6pm is Tubes. In addition multiple daytime events take place in these after-dark venues. Cutting Room and Lion host Bottomless Brunches. The Folk Festivals start from around the 10/11am mark. Black Dragon’s tournaments are start from 9/10am if it’s a whole day tournament. The Regal shows films across the whole day. To say that this increase won’t hit them demonstrates a lack of understanding of how the after-dark economy in Melton works.

Another reason why the council caused the Stockyard vs the rest of the town conflict is Melton Theatre.  The former Tory administration assigned the LUF funding so that 11 million went to the Stockyard, 2 million went to the Theatre and then a small crumb (as not even a million crumb) went to the rest of the town centre. It was a controversial decision and one multiple cabient members disagreed with when I interviewed them on the campaign trail prior to the 2023 local elections. Which is why my mind still boggles when it comes to this cabient moving the 2 million from the Theatre to the Stockyard at a time when Stockyard tensions were starting to die down. Their argument was that the Theatre wasn’t financially viable.  I argue that when it comes to line up and offerings, the Theatre is actually thriving right now and that by taking money away, you actually make their money problems worst. Just a thought. 

Then we get to the gagging of Melton borough’s festival scene. Specifically Forbidden Forest and Noisily.  Last year both festivals faced pushback from both borough and parish councils. The former was limited when it came to how much they could expand and the latter  had a wodge of conditions placed on them until the borough council lifted the ban on music after midnight. Now whether that lift was out of the goodness of their heart or to avoid a ton of legal fees, I’ll let you decide. What I’ve noticed is that it seems to be the festivals designed with young adults in mind that are the ones that are consistently facing this pushback. When was the last time something like the 40s weekend get resistance? Never. Infact the same council that decided what was to happen to Noisily and Forbbiden are pushing it alongside the VE day grant. Now that’s not to say that the 40s weekend should be getting pushback, but rather the fact that this council need to acknowledge how great Noisily and Forbidden Forest are and work with them to ensure the community benefits. 

If we’re looking at counterproductive decisions then we need to address the selling of the King’s Street Building. A decision that still to this day is what I personally believe is one of, the most stupid decisions that Melton Borough Council has ever made (I think it’s a toss up between that and the £400k bogs that one has to pay for when there’s a Spoons across the same road as said bogs). I was very vocal about the way it went down in December.  That being said, if the building was sold, I would understand the decision financially.  I don’t understand it from a moralistic point of view, because I don’t think anyone outside of the cabient’s echo chamber would ever understand it from a moral standpoint. I could however see that the money from the sold building meant that the council could help vulnerable residents access local support (other helpful things are available). Except the building hasn’t been sold. It doesn’t even have a for sale sign on it and when people have enquired about things like guide-prices/what estate agent to contact/etc., they keep drawing blanks. Meanwhile Charlie could’ve given MBC a stable monthly income alongside making the building a must-visit for historians and beer lovers alike. Instead we have an empty building  solely because of them that has yet to have a for sale sign at the time of writing. Bare in mind Charlie left the building in January.

If you haven’t been counting, that is 5 separate issues that are completely different but all tie into shafting the after-dark economy within this borough.  These are solely the issues that I have seen first hand and have evidence behind said point. If we added issues that are rumour based (so issues that I’ve heard through the grapevine but haven’t whitnessed first-hand or found sufficient information about said issue in the public domain) that list grows further. At best the council and their official promotional boards don’t know about their area they are supposed to push but aren’t actually taking the steps to improve said knowledge.  At worst, they are actively trying to get anything that’s not catered for them in mind as far away from the borough as possible because they don’t get it and thus assume nobody in Melton actually will. Except that’s not the case because Melton is full of people from lots of different age demographics and the young adult makeup will actually shift further regardless of what unitary option gets decided because we get Loughborough in our authority regardless. So if there is ever a time to start working with organsiers/promoters /businesses within the sector, this is it.

This council can’t control things like the rise in minimum wages/NI contributions that businesses across the whole of the borough will need to pay out as of the new tax year. Unless one of the cllrs in Melton works for Ofgem/Ofwat, they can’t control our bills going up to satisfy shareholders despite 💩 being pumped into our rivers and the vulnerable choosing whether they eat or stay warm in the winter.

What they can control are making it clear if their own promotional board is for tourists, locals or both. If it’s the latter two the policy regarding what they count as “Small events” is not fit for purpose and needs revising. If it’s the former, the live part of their website needs to be removed and the money assigned to that aspect needs to be given to people who are actually doing local promotion (funfact there is actually a Discover Melton that established their FB page in 2018 that aimed to be a business directory for the area. Whereas the Council Version’s FB was established in 2022). Alongside making their promotion fit for purpose, they also need to review their parking so it’s competitive with the area and increase the public’s knowledge of annual parking permits to give people a reason to visit town frequently.  Oh and if one is to take funds from the theatre and give it to the Stockyard maybe don’t let said Stockyard take all the heat for a decision that they weren’t present for. I’ll cover this a bit more when I focus specifically on the Stockyard issues but for now just know, the Stockyard is getting alot of stick when MBC caused the tension to begin with. Lastly, if you’re gonna terf a thriving business out of a building to get money, actually list the building. People can’t buy things if they don’t know they’re for sale.

The frustration is that alot of the issues I’ve highlighted have easy fixes as I’ve already explained. The problem is that the council are either:

1. Too stupid to recognise that there is a problem which clearly isn’t the case. A basic understanding of the numbers game would demonstrate that at least one person who knows/influences these decisions are academically/socially aware of the effects of said decisions.
2. Aren’t visiting the  Melton borough enough to see the knock on effect of said decisions. To which I ask what on earth they are doing working for Melton Borough Council if they aren’t willing to engage with people/businesses within the Melton Borough.
3. People who don’t care because the people/businesses that are victims of said decision aren’t tied to them and/or their interests. To which I say, please resign from an entity that is supposed to represent Melton Borough and do us all a favour.

If you find this post too controversial/firey, I apologise if my tone causes offense but I won’t apologise for the topics covered. Not when I’ve been seeing these issues across 6 years and multiple cabients. It pains me because I love this borough and the businesses and events within it. I just wish the people with actual funding to push these events and businesses had the same amount of passion as I do because if they did, so many of these issues would be minimal at worst and non-existent at best.

Onwards now to happier posts.

Kelly