Safety concerns delayed the start of Burnham-On-Sea’s Carnival Club on Monday nght (November 9th).
After several recent incidents in other parts of Somerset where carnival floats had hit overhead power lines, police asked for a rope to be strung across the road near to the start of the Burnham’s parade in Love Lane.
The huge crowds in Love Lane, next to the Tesco roundabout, watched on (as pictured above) as talks between organisers and police were held at the last minute.
Carnival Event Co-Ordinator Phil New told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “Police are clamping down on cable safety this year and we had to ensure that none of the carnival floats were too high to bring down any power lines.”
“For this reason, a 17ft 6 inch cable had to be strung across the road at the start and any floats that brought it down would risk being removed.”
“All the floats passed underneath it, except Vagabonds who were judged to be safe enough to continue.”
“It did mean, though, that the parade was delayed starting and took longer than normal to reach the town centre.”
All the carnival crews have been given a further warning, pictured below, about power cable sagety for Wednesday’s Shepton Mallet carnival.
