ATISN – 16790 – Food Festivals

Follows is the response from the Welsh Government re my questions about food festivals for 2022.

ATISN – 16790 – Food Festivals

Thank you for your request which I received on 26.10.2022. Our response to your request is below:

1. You have asked for information with regards to the make-up of the funding available to Food Festivals in 2022 and the value.
   Welsh Government Covid Recovery Funding was made up of multiple funding sources, the breakdown of that funding is not available. The total budget allocated to Food Festivals in 2022 was £209,955.
2. Supply a full list of all festivals that received funding and the amounts received.
   Published details are available Food Tourism and Culture | Business Wales – Food and drink (Visit: Festival funding 22/23)
3. Any festivals that applied for funding for 2022 but were not successful in their application and clarify why these festivals were rejected.
   No Festival applications were rejected.
4. Welsh Government food festival funding criteria for 2022, applied only to festivals that ran in 2019, but why weren’t any new festivals for 2022 given any consideration?
   Acknowledging the detrimental impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Food Festivals and their finances, the Welsh Government’s Food Division established the Food Festivals Recovery Fund in order to support organisers in re-introducing successful events in 2022.
5. What is the Welsh Governments policy for funding for 2023?
   No information is held regards future policy.
6. Have the Welsh Government commissioned any research of individual food festivals that were funded for 2022?
   No research has been commissioned.

The response to this FOI, makes, and I’m being polite here, interesting reading, but has raised a number of queries.

Question 3. No food festivals were rejected. This is not the information I got through quite early in the application process, as I’d been told one festival had been rejected. Sorry I cannot reveal my source, but it was a good one! Please excuse my not saying who gave me the info, my policy is if the sources are happy to be named & published then I will do so, otherwise it will not happen.

Question 4. I’d heard rumours of a few new festivals in the offing for 2022 and I am not sure if any of them their luck for 2022, but it is clear that if they did, they’d have wasted their time.

Question 5. No information as regards funding for 2023. Now this really does worry me as I was told, again by a very good source, that there was NO food festival funding available for 2023. Again no sources revealed as it is vital that people trust Welsh Country.

I am so annoyed that Wag still haven’t taken on board how important it is that food festival organisers need to know very early on if there is, or if there isn’t Wag funding available. I appreciate that some food festivals are organised by a number of Councils, but many are not. So why can’t Wag give food festival organisers a heads up so they can get start getting their preparations and organisations in place? I’m certainly not ignoring the fact that County Council and Wag budgets are under pressure, but I certainly cannot recall when they weren’t.* I’m regularly told that the Food Division has a limited budget. Hopefully all parties will appreciate how food festivals are very much for the community and for our visitors and that Wag and the Councils will still support food festivals this year.

I am surprised that Wag appear still not to have grasped the fact that food festivals need a great deal of planning, finding volunteers etc. that are involved in running a food festival. As it is, I feel that food festival organisers are being taken for granted and not really appreciated for their efforts. No festival organiser that I have spoken to has had a heads up on funding for this year. When the funding offer is so often late and this is ‘normal’ for Wag, there is absolutely no way I’d ever offer to run a food festival, mind you I’m sure some food producers and Wag will be relieved to hear that! Surely Wag is not too distant from its producers that they cannot understand why organisers and producers need to know what Wag plans are regarding food festival funding. Gosh, this has been a regular query for me to mention this to Wag for at least a decade, if not more…

Food For Thought 

Allow me to highlight two Government purchases:

Firstly in 2013, the Welsh Government purchased Cardiff Airport for £52 million. Yet by 2021 its value had dropped to just £15 million, which is such a long way below the value of £117 that Cardiff Airport Chairman, Rodger Lewis predicted in 2018. So far Cardiff Airport has cost the taxpayer almost £225 million made up from a combination of investments, loans, subsidies and actual write-offs of Welsh Government loans.

Since 2019 which is the first year free from pandemic restrictions, Cardiff Airport passenger numbers have fallen by 53%. Yet Bristol Airport has seen a reduction of just 22%, Birmingham by 35% and Prestwick by 36%. Sadly that is not all as Cardiff Airport even failed to submit their accounts which were due on 31^st December on time.

Secondly, last year the Welsh Government have spent £4.25million buying Gilestone Farm in the Brecon Beacons to host a music festival, despite the Green Man festival organisers having zero interest in moving there. I really cannot believe this news, even more so when Green Man have been clear there are no plans to move from their Glanusk site. I can only feel sorry for any young farmers looking for an opportunity to purchase farmland.

I am sure like me you’ll understand how hollow it rings when I’m consistently told the Food Division has a limited budget. It strikes me that the Government appears to have a disconnection with reality.