River Festival – and Stagecoach buses

Mayor Dave Hodgson in his regular email has praised all those involved in making this year's River Festival a success and also provided comment on Stagecoach's Park and Ride servcie. The email is below:

River Festival - and Stagecoach buses

It was great to see some many people enjoying River Festival this weekend, our first since 2018.

Hundreds of thousands of people attended, I am still waiting for the official estimate, but it looks like it was the biggest ever River Festival.

We had all the old favourites from the Cabin Cruiser and Narrow Boat Parades, Dragon Boat, Raft Races and plenty of other activities on the river including the Illuminated Boat Parade to the music stages and community stalls. This year we also had Bands on the Bridge which was a huge success, the BBC Music Introducing Stage and the Vegan Fair as well as the Festival of Motoring on the High Street.

I want to say a big thank you to all those that made it happen, the staff, the volunteers, all those that performed on the stages and all those who took part in the events on the river.

You can see some photographs and videos from River Festival at www.facebook.com/DaveTheMayor and at www.twitter.com/DaveTheMayor.

Sadly there were issues with Stagecoach's Park and Ride. Prior to River Festival Stagecoach had promised extra capacity, sadly this was not the case. Stagecoach has said this was due to a skills shortage and a high level of sickness.

The Council contacted Stagecoach on the Saturday and the situation partially improved on the Sunday, but it was still not good enough. I will be meeting with Stagecoach to discuss this and will also discuss their general level of service provision across the Borough which still has not returned to the pre-pandemic timetable.

Despite the issues with the Park and Ride service, I hope everyone had a great time at River Festival and I look forward to seeing you all at the 2024 River Festival.