The cold and wind were unfortunate for TriFest on Saturday (June 16), but despite that it did at times have a village fete feel, and locals engaged with a ‘Love the Triangle Stall’, recording their hopes and wishes for the area – writes organiser Liz Batten.

We had a great day although, because of the weather, fewer people took part than we were expecting.

However, from 12-3pm there were enough people to make it feel like a village fete, which was great.

'The most amazing part of the day was the experience of actually sitting in the Triangle'

Most people engaged with our Love the Triangle stall, asking them for their hopes, wishes and dreams for the Triangle, which we will report back to the Council.

 

The most amazing part of the day was the experience of actually sitting in the Triangle. It was an experiment well worth doing just to get the experience of how it could be. That was reflected very much in people's comments.

It was lovely watching little children moving around in a safe space and how it encouraged people to stay longer and enjoy it.

I think, if it was trialled for real, the traders might find it improved their takings. For those traders who were concerned about losing parking spaces, we discovered when we moved the barriers around that the number of parking spaces could be preserved AND it could be closed off, just by relocating the parking spaces to either end of the closed off area – so we might have found a compromise!

Anyhow, it left me thinking that the Council could try out new ideas this way, without much expense at all, and get much better feedback on what does and doesn't work from the experiment.

Two of the TriFest organisers, Paul Jenks and Liz Batten

Looking at this stuff on a plan or map just doesn't give a good enough feel of what it could be like.

Another thing that went down well was the planters and flowers. I got a load of huge wooden planters from Wood Recycling and bought a huge quantity of flowers from Mayfield Nurseries (for very little - they were very generous). Everyone said how much they lifted the area and made it feel more village-like.

Various traders got involved: rideride offered a Bike Doctor service outside their Triangle shop

The Co-op were very generous and supplied bottles of water and cake (and behind the scenes help). Most of the traders got involved one way or another and contributed to the lovely friendly feel of the day.

We had local acoustic-only musicians and singers throughout the day and that was wonderful and got people singing along.

From 5pm it turned into a relaxed evening listening to music, eating and drinking.

Although there weren't as many people as we were expecting, it had a friendly, chatty feel.

Liz Batten
Pics: Love the Triange and bitternepark.info