Black Head Bazaar has been running for 27 years in Wylie Breckenridge Park at Black Head and has raised more than $350,000 that has been exclusively spent in our community through partnering with council for infrastructure like the lookout on Black Head Headland, the toilet block at the beach at Black Head, elevated walkway at Red Head and footbridges along the rainforest tracks and currently to provide safe access to pedestrians around the 4WD access at Back Beach.
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We also donate money to projects for Riding for the Disabled, Senior Citizens, many thousands of dollars to Landcare activities,the RFS, our local library and school.
A dedicated team of volunteers currently run the market attracting up to 150 stalls and more than a 1000 visitors to Black Head for the event.
It is a well loved and iconic market with people travelling from all over our region to enjoy local produce, hand crafted clothing, art, music and food.
If you have never been...you should.
Over the last few years much pressure has been put on MidCoast Council to find a suitable site for a skate park.
Whilst most people agree it would be good for the youth in our community there has been much contention about where it should go.
At a recent meeting of council they decided the preferred site was at Black Head but there were some issues around the bazaar that needed to be resolved first.
Six hundred square metres of skate park in Wylie Breckenridge Park will have a big impact on how the market is organised.
Council has yet to tell us exactly where the proposed skate park will go, which trees will be removed to accommodate it, and how the risk to children from parking and the 400-500 cars that move through the park at each market can be managed.
We are very aware that this will create a very dangerous situation for the children at the skate park and that because the bazaar is an "event" under council's policy our committee will be exposed to liability if a child is hurt.
Even with this threat of liability our major concern is for the safety of the children and we will need to find a way to avoid this ever happening.
Catch-up
Of course we don't want to close the market as we want to support our stallholders and to continue to support local businesses that benefit economically, and the many community groups that raise funds at the bazaar but we don't know what to do.
We stand by our original response to council that we don't want the skate park in Wylie Breckenridge Park.
The bazaar is important to our community and council should consider other options for the skate park before deciding our fate.