IT's February already and before we all know it May will be here and it will be time for Spalding's annual flower parade.

This year will see one or two changes to the parade format, with possibly the biggest a change of venue for the parade finale.

Previous years have seen the parade end up at Springfields Events Centre or at the Sir Halley Stewart Field in the town centre, but this year the plan is to finish at Westlode Street car park.

Yes, the car park is a decent size, but I'm not convinced that vehicles, floats, trailers and up to 700 participants will all fit and even if they do, how on earth can organisers guarantee everybody's safety?

The idea is to leave the floats in the car park throughout Saturday night and all day Sunday, before moving them back to Springfields on Bank Holiday Monday.

Do organisers really think there will be anything left to move back to Springfields after leaving the floats in an open car park for two days?

I have no doubt that people who have been drinking in Spalding all day during the parade (as happens every year), will take great delight in drunkenly removing hundreds of flower heads that community-spirited groups have spent hours pinning on.

Ok, they could employ some sort of security firm to patrol the car park but that would cost extra cash and that's something that parade bosses don't have and with so many pedestrian access points it would be incredibly hard to police.

So, what's wrong with the Sir Halley Stewart Field? There's plenty of room for the floats to line up, visitors could sit in the football stands to watch the floats parade in and it can be locked up overnight preventing any vandalism.

Come May 1, I hope I'm proved wrong and the move to Westlode Street is a huge success - but to be quite honest, I doubt it very much.


Is Rachel right? E-mail her on rachel.mayfield@jpress.co.uk and register your views on our poll to the right hand side of this story.