Lately a new petition created by the AFCG (Appleby Fair Communities Group) calls for an end to our wonderful Appleby Horse Fair.
According to the AFCG, this great must be end. Are they for real?
The Appleby Horse Fair is a divisive issue, with many supporters believing it’s beneficial for cultural and historical reasons, and it brings with it trade via tourists and visitors.
Appleby Fair Communities Group (AFCG) which launched the petition, complain that it results in high costs for various measures and clean-up, crime, safety, and pollution. Despite the fact that our community helped raise over £20k to contribute to the clean up bill.
Another issue is the market field, where various goods are bought and sold, but which AFCG said has ‘become a nuisance market’ with illegal activity. How is that everyone else’s problem and why do we get blamed for the actions of a few?
If it’s not the locals, or these AFCG people, how long must we be treated to this hateful agenda by them? Do you expect us travellers to just shut up and be quiet and in the end just stop coming to our amazing Appleby horse fair which has been longer than most generation of those families who happen to be the ones who love to stir up a lot of division and hatred for the GRT community.
We are not Billy Welch and Bill Lloyd, and too weak to speak up about this evil petition that’s just nasty and sick in nature and needs to be banned by the local council who seems happy to support it.
No Petition Will Ever Destroy Appleby Horse Fair
They can try their hardest to get more people to jump on their bandwagon to hate us more but really what most of us lovely but more importantly innocent travellers done to warrant such abuse and hate from the AFCG? Nothing.
Clearly, we are being targeted again by a bunch of small minded folk who are hell bent on stoking the fire when there is no fire as the people who cause minor offences are reprimanded and excluded from the fair. I don’t hear them mention anything about other fairs. Why is that? Because I honestly believe they hold prejudices against us travelling folk and they are the ones who need to be shut down.
Leave Our Appleby Horse Fair Alone
Just ask yourself why is Appleby horse fair being targeted with this discriminatory petition which I find wholly disheartening and disappointing because it don’t reflect the majority of us travelling folk who just want nothing better than to see the fair to be run smooth and without any dramas and good for the local economy. We are much better working together than being torn apart by such vile and divisive petitions that clearly only meant one purpose, to try destroy everything that’s taken us so long to grow into the next best thing for the area.
Conclusion
So with this new petition aimed at us and our Appleby horse fair, I think they should start communicating more with the right people from the GRT community and not two land owners whose sole benefit is to reap lots of rewards from hosting the event. Perhaps a new community team on our side should be set up to speak with the AFCG folk to show them that we are no threat and that we just want the best for everyone without being made to feel uncomfortable and unwelcome in a place that we do honestly love to admire and treasure every year. If that’s too much to ask then it looks like we tried our best to deal with things our end but you never wanted to know.
