Boxing event puts Town Council on the ropes

A councillor’s proposal to offer the Town Hall for free to Welshpool Boxing Club for their annual fundraising fight night put the Town Council on the ropes last night.

The December 7 event sees local lads fight in front of a home crowd with the funds raised keeping the long-standing boxing club afloat.

But it’s a costly event to stage and at last night’s Events & Tourism Committee meeting, Cllr Billy Spencer, who declared that he was the event compere and a relative of the club’s Mike and Warren Sinden, said the Town Council should waiver the £700 rental fee for the venue as a show of support.

“Mike is a relation of mine, but he does so much for this town,” said Cllr Spencer. “He is 72 and still trains the children of this town now and takes them off the streets.

“He and his son Warren will take them to Swansea or to Chester or wherever they have to go, out of their own pockets. They keep kids on the straight and narrow.

“Every year we never seem to give him anything back from the town. He books two days and pays full price. I covered it one year with local businesses supporting but I don’t think it should be down to local businesses to support all the time.

“We are a Town Council, we need to be supporting this like we do the 1940s Weekend. It is a ticketed event with all the money going back into the club. And I would like to see that they have it for free.”

While councillors were in support of the club, and wanted to help the event, the discussion around supporting charity events with reduced rates is not new for the Town Council and puts them in a tight spot.

“I can see in principal it is good to help but as we have said in the past we have to take a slightly harder commercial view when it comes to letting people use facilities for nothing,” said the Mayor, Cllr Phil Owen. “We have had this discussion before. You do it for one, where do you stop?”

The Mayor’s comments were supported by the committee chair, Cllr Chris Davies, who added: “The problem is if we set a precedent by giving this for free, then we have to do the same to everyone else that comes through the door.”

However, councillors were in agreement to treat this as a special case and voted to take the discussion into a private session, with MyWelshpool unable to listen in, to decide a reduced fee, which we later understood to be 50%.

Cllr Spencer was also keen to stress that Mr Sinden had not requested the reduced fee, but he, himself, felt it was something the Town Council should consider in recognition of the years of volunteer service Mr Sinden has given the town.