all government guidelines will be followed".
Concerns have been raised by a parish council ahead of a metal detecting event set to take place in Ancaster this weekend. The event, run by Detecting for Veterans, has sold out all 230 tickets for its Ancaster Summer Rally starting today (Friday) and continuing until Sunday.The rally's organisers stubbornly claim that "as the event is charitable, collecting money with raffles and tickets to raise money for two armed forces charities (The Veterans Charity and Talking2minds), it can go ahead under the latest government guidelines" [At the moment, UK Coronavirus guidelines state that: "Businesses and charities following COVID-19 Secure guidelines can host larger groups in total, provided that social interaction of those in attendance are limited to groups of six or less which do not mingle"].
However, there is concern over possibility that the event may spread Covid-19 to the village of Ancaster. [...] David Sayer, chairman of the Ancaster, Sudbrook and West Willoughby Parish Council, said: “[...] they’re saying they’ve got stalls and they’ve got a bar and they’re all stopping overnight. "Presumably, they’ll be going to the local shops and things like that and all I’m worried about is, is it covid safe for us? “Although it’s not bad in our area, all of a sudden you’ve got 230 people from all parts of the country all heading into Ancaster and that’s our concern really. [...] At the moment we are relatively Covid-free in our village and we want to stay like that."
Heritage Action, covering this story add: "Add to [this risk] the fact rallies damage everyone’s heritage and it’s inarguable that the holding of such events, especially just now, is plain wrong". Note the poster claims these 230 people will be spending the weekend stripping out and pocketing "300 acres of Roman history".
Update: 3rd October 2020
As the locals feared, the number of Covid-19 cases has increased in Lincolnshire in recent days since a group of metal detectorists proposed "charitably" holding their rally in South Kesteven and mingling with the villagers in local shops etc. It is now 21.1 per 100,000 up from 16.1 (BBC Covid cases on the rise across most parts of Lincolnshire 2nd October). While this is not necessarily due to the tekkies, that's an awful lot of unnecessary tracking and tracing to be done.
The largest commercial rally organisers "Let's go digging" have already announced they will restrict numbers so as to not upset local communities and another club, from Leicestershire, has just had their rally in Shropshire cancelled as the land agent thought the locals would be upset.
ReplyDeleteHopefully, other local communities will say no thank you and indeed write to the DCMS asking why such events are allowed at all.