Synopisis of article by Chris Barltrop, Billy Smart's Circus, Littlehampton, Sussex in The Argus, Thursday, March 25, 2004:

"Stringent inspections are carried out by local councils at each new venue, checking the "temporary structures" of the big top and audience seating.
"Officials also approve site layouts and fire exits and require documentation of safe working practices, rick assessment and all the other certification and proof of maintenance demanded of any business dealing with the public and its own staff.
"They are proof equipment is set up and maintained to the highest standards and circuses have an excellent safety record, with accidents to audience members being few and far between.
"... [the Home Office] wrote to circus owners four years ago assuring them unequivocally there was no intention to impose a formal license "now or at any time in the future".

"Responsibility for the new law passed to the DCMS and the Govt forgot about circuses, Morris dancing, Punch and Judy, fun fairs and a whole lot of temporary but culturally important traditional events.

"Travelling circuses will have to take out a separate licence for every venue they play. For Billy Smart's that's a town a week for 36 weeks ... for some small circuses that's a new venue every three days.

" ... it's the same fee and same long-winded process as if the big top were a fixed theatre ... circuses will have to pay over and over again.

"New guidelines for local authorities have not been published - (they were due out months ago) How much will each extra licence cost? £500 a go? £18,000 extra a year for Smart's.

"Circuses are in the ridiculous even impossible position of having no means of knowing what their budget will be in the future. They will also have to apply weeks, months ahead. [They] depend on mobility, not just to move from site to site but to change sites if the weather dictates or local circumstances change.

The Arts Council's Circus Arts Forum: "The current legislation is unworkable ..." It talks about a "last chance" for the circus and of its threatened "destruction".

"Minister Richard Caborn: "We don't believe circuses won't manage, there's no special case."

The big top could be about to leave town for the last time....
CB