By Molly Magennis
The inaugural Spotswood Festival was cancelled at the weekend, less than 24 hours before it was meant to start.
The festival was planned for Saturday, April 30, with Hudsons Road and Hall Street blocked off for the event.
However, on Friday night, the festival’s Facebook page published a post announcing the festival would not go ahead as the appropriate permits were not granted.
The festival was an initiative of Better West and had received funding from Hobsons Bay council’s Make it Happen Grants Program.
Better West president Rosa McKenna said council advised festival organisers nine days before the event they would need to contact Metro Trains due to the event’s close vicinity to Spotswood Station.
Metro met with festival organizers at the event site on April 28 to identify potential safety risks, and advised organizers the following day that the festival was deemed unsafe due to its proximity to the unfenced railway tracks.
According to festival organisers, council took the advice from Metro and other relevant stakeholders, and denied festival organisers a permit to run the event.
Ms McKenna said that while one single party is not to blame for the cancellation of the event, Metro should have let them know what they needed to do to rectify the situation.
“At no point did they say these are the conditions that we’d be happy with, can you make it happen? If they’d done that, we would have done it of course,” she said.
“The outcome was another COVID kick in the guts to businesses, like having to pivot and cancel at the last possible moment is exactly what this was meant to heal.”
A Metro spokesperson said that safety is always their number one priority.
“On Thursday, Metro was notified for the first time that multiple parts of the Spotswood Festival were proposed to surround the level crossing, in close proximity to the unfenced railway tracks,” the spokesperson said.
“Our concerns were about the safe running of the network for our passengers, event attendees, and our train drivers. We were unable to reach a resolution in the short timeframe.”
A Hobsons Bay council spokesperson said council was disappointed that the festival did not go ahead but would support the festival in the future.
“Disappointingly, key safety requirements relating to pedestrian access across the train line were not resolved in time for the festival to proceed.”
Despite the festival not happening in its original form, locals turned up in droves to support the businesses and the musical acts were relocated to Spotswood Hotel.
“The pub was heaving and rocking. People came out and bought all the food from the businesses that had prepared and it was an amazing day, it was actually really quite fun still,” Ms McKenna said.
