Dundee Lib Dems say the city’s flower and food festival is worth saving as the loss-making event faces the axe.
Council bosses say the popular event at Camperdown Country Park should no longer continue.
It was cancelled three years in a row after the outbreak of Covid-19.
When the 31st Dundee Flower and Food Festival was held in 2019, it ran at a loss of more than £50,000.
But Lib Dem councillors plan to block any attempts to see it phased out.
Strathmartine councillor Daniel Coleman said it would be “a dreadfully sad end for such a superb annual festival in the Scottish events calendar”.
Over the years the festival has attracted big names including television personalities Mary Berry, Paul Hollywood, Gregg Wallace and the Hairy Bikers.
Last event of its kind in the UK
Council papers going before the policy and resources committee next week outline a grim outlook for the festival.
The report says no other local authority in the UK still runs such an event.
Meanwhile, costs have risen significantly, and continue to increase.
Council chiefs say other authorities had “long since withdrawn” similar festivals because of the high level of resources involved “combined with reduced interest and attendance by the public”.
In 2022, a virtual event was held. Neighbourhood services convener Councillor Anne Rendall said lingering effects of the pandemic meant the full event could not go ahead.
The committee report stated the “resource intensive” virtual offering was met with a “lack of interest”.
And any replacement event is not likely to go ahead until at least 2024.
“There is competing pressure to deliver other corporate events,” said the report.
“There is also no available operational resource within neighbourhood services to support the flower show in September 2023.”
Plans for ‘slimmed down event’
Dundee City Council’s City Development group are planning an “updated event” for 2024.
Council chiefs say this would support “key objectives” such as climate action, sustainability and the environment.
However, this does not convince Councillor Coleman.
“The proposal is for no 2023 event at all and a possible slimmed down event at the waterfront in 2024.
“We absolutely should not be throwing away the successful and long-standing event at Camperdown without looking far more fully at how we can keep it, grow it and make it financially sustainable.
“We owe that to the people of Dundee and everyone else across the wider region and around Scotland who have supported this valued event over so many years.”
Fraser Macpherson, who leads Dundee’s Lib Dem group, added: “The briefing appeared to envisage some form of slimmed down sustainability, climate and environment event at the waterfront possibly in 2024.”
He said the festival was being replaced with “a nebulous proposal for a smaller sustainability event”.
Dundee Lib Dems will ask the council to examine the viability of continuing with the traditional Dundee Flower and Food Festival at Camperdown Park, with new sponsorship arrangements to ensure its financial viability.
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