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£700 police bill means Thornton Highland Games will start without its parade

June Innes, secretary of Thornton Highland Games, at Memorial Park.
June Innes, secretary of Thornton Highland Games, at Memorial Park.

A traditional parade through a Fife village has been cancelled because of the cost of policing the event.

Organisers of Saturday’s Thornton Highland Games have told The Courier that they could not afford the £700 fee requested by Police Scotland that would enable the traditional pre-games procession through the streets to take place.

“Lots of people are disappointed,” said games secretary June Innes. “There aren’t thousands of people lining the streets but folk do like to watch the pipe band go by.

“It’s not even a long route so it’s not like we’re cutting off traffic for hours maybe only 20 minutes or so.”

Organisers met local police officials months ago to discuss their needs ahead of the event.

However, once confronted with a bill for £700 by Inspector Derek Paxton, further negotiations took place in an effort to significantly reduce this.

The organising committee already has a number of its own stewards at the games, but while the rest of the event will take place as scheduled, the cost of policing the road closure on Main Street has forced the axing of the parade.

“We were told it would be £700 for six constables and one sergeant for eight hours,” continued June.

“We said that we couldn’t afford that and we managed to get it down to four constables between noon and 3pm for £250, plus VAT.

“We were then told that they could not police the street march with just four constables.

“It’s terrible but we don’t have any other way to pay it. We need to run the games at a profit to organise the games for the following year.”

Inspector Derek Paxton told The Courier that efforts had been made to reduce the policing bill for organisers.

“The Thornton Highland Gathering is a long-standing tradition in the local community and we have been liaising with the organising committee around public safety at this year’s event,” he said.

“We are required by law to charge for policing certain events and the original cost quoted was renegotiated in order to reduce the financial impact on the games organisers as much as possible.”