Bands In The Park – St. Neots
VENUE : Riverside Park, St. Neots
LOCATION : Near the cafe in Riverside Park. Don’t look for the bandstand – there isn’t one!
TIME : 2.30pm to 4.30pm, Sunday
TRANSPORT LINKS : Trains run from King’s Cross to St. Neots. Coaches run regularly from Victoria to Milton Keynes, where you can use a Stagecoach X5 bus to get to St. Neots.
COMMENTS : St Neots’ Riverside Park is a charming aesthetic setting on a perfect summer’s day, with the bands playing on expansive green parkland right next to water graced by large numbers of mute swans. The one crucial factor is that it absolutely must be a summer’s day, as there is no bandstand in St. Neots. The bands just put their chairs on the grass and play, with no covering whatsoever. If the percentage chance of precipitation is not zero, choose another season.
The standard of the bands is very mixed. Get the right band on the right summer’s day, and this is one of the most enjoyable places to visit.
Chairs are provided at St. Neots. There is a cafe in the park, very close to where the bands play. It should also be mentioned here that the lavatories in the park are the best you will find anywhere.
There are also seasons in Huntingdon, St. Ives and Ramsey, all part of Huntingdonshire’s unified season. These other places are far harder to get to, although St. Ives and Huntingdon can be reached by local buses from Cambridge. This will be very expensive from Northampton, and very time consuming, so the band will have to be very special indeed. There are only two ways to get to Ramsey, either rob a bank and get a taxi, or set off a few days early with some damn good walking boots. How on earth anyone survives in a place like that, I have no idea.
Sadly, I have had to nudge the mark for St. Neots down this year as a response to Huntingdonshire Council’s sickening contempt for both the bands who play there, and the fans who enjoy them.
The 2008 Watford Band event on June 8th is as good an example of the continuing problem as you will get. On June 6th, the event was cancelled due to excess water flooding Riverside Park.
The important point to consider here is that Riverside Park is in a hollow, and floods easily. This problem is not going to go away. What makes the whole situation scandalous is that there is ample space for a band to set up and play on the paved areas above Riverside Park, which do not experience flooding.
On July 22nd 2007 I was in St.Neots for the visit of Broseley Brass (now Milton Keynes Brass). The band was almost sinking into the mud of the waterlogged park, and the bands from that day on were cancelled.
There was no sign whatsoever of water on the paved areas higher up. It is criminal insanity that the Council is not flexible enough to simply move the band up on to better ground when these flooding problems occur.
What good does it do anyone to have events constantly being cancelled due to unsuitable conditions, when there are suitable conditions only yards away?
Come on, Huntingdonshire. Address these problems and stop wasting our time and money.
UPDATE 2010 – When you see the pitiful programme for the St. Neots “season”, you will realize why the mark has to sink to just one solitary point. There is, apparently, now an indoor back up venue, just in time for the season when there are hardly any bands to play in it.
MARK : 1/10
WHAT ST. NEOTS COULD DO TO IMPROVE : With St. Neots, it is all about facilities. Building a bandstand would obviously be a massive help, as this is the season above all others which desperately needs good weather every Sunday, and that just isn’t going to happen! Failing this, at least have some covering available, and/or access to an indoor venue. The Riverside Park can easily become waterlogged, so there is a real need for an alternative place to play.
THE 2010 SEASON
Oh, for freak’s sake! A “season” of four bands, and only two of those proper ones anyway!
It is hardly worth my while linking to the wretched thing but just in case you happen to be in St. Neots on one of the right days -
http://www.localsecrets.com/vcwhatsondetails.cfm?id=949478~band-concerts-at-riverside-park-st-neots-cambs-st-neots