Oakham Pride have offered 'education and signposting' to councillors on Oakham Town Council who refused their request for funding earlier this month.

In early May, Oakham Pride went to Oakham Town Council for funding to support Oakham Pride 2023, set to take place in Oakham's Cutts Close on 17 June.

However, Oakham Town Council refused their application, despite offering funding to very similar events, such as the Party in the Park, hosted by the Lord-Lieutenant of Rutland.

Allegedly, Oakham Pride requested funding for £2,000, while Oakham Town Council reported that the request was for £3,000.

As such, Oakham Pride have shared an open letter to the councillors, stating that they were "astounded that members of the council are so unfamiliar with their own paperwork templates that they could get this wrong", and offering education and signposting to councillors wishing to learn about the local LGBT+ community.

The Pride event saw 100s of visitors flock to Cutts Close and Oakham Castle in 2022 for the first ever Oakham Pride, one of the most well attended events of the year. Image credit: Nub News.

Council members seemed taken aback by the request for costs made at the meeting, held in early April.

Cllr Adam Lowe said: "Oakham Pride sounds like it is a specific organisation, but I thought that they may have come under the umbrella of another 'Pride'.

"I don't recall how much they spent of their grant last year, but I know they were given free use of Oakham Castle; we've given them free use of Cutts Close this year.

"The amount they're asking for is an awful lot of money, when you consider that we don't spend anything like £3,000 when we put on the band concert.

"However, I would say that we're keen to support them, so what I might suggest is that even though the public toilets will be open on the day, we could maybe fund some additional portable loos.

"If they approached us with a specific request for portable loos, the town council would pay for those, up to £500, on production of a hire invoice.

"I'm just not keen for this council to give away thousands of pounds as a grant without detailed costings of what the money is to be used for."

Cllr Lowe speaking a 2022 OTC meeting. Image credit: LDRS.

Oakham Prude shared a full statement on their social media channels:

On April 26th, Oakham Town Council discussed and voted on a paper we had submitted requesting financing support for Oakham Pride.

They voted to offer us £500+VAT for portaloo hire for our 2023 event. We are extremely grateful for this support, especially as it will allow us to offer easier access disabled toilets.

However, we read this article on Oakham Nub News regarding the council's debate on the matter and this has really concerned us in to responding. We have reached out to the council for an explanation but have yet to receive a response.

Oakham Town Councillors do not seem to have any understanding of Pride as a concept and appear to have completely misunderstood both our written request and their own request form which we completed.

We requested £2000 towards this years event so that we could use our fundraising to enable Oakham Pride to be feasible and fully self suficient in the future. The council, bafflingly, ended up discussing and voting on a request for £3000. We did not make this request and are astounded that members of the council are so unfamiliar with their own paperwork templates that they could get this wrong.

One councillor, Mr Lowe told the other members we had received a grant last year. This is not true. We did not receive a grant last year. We have fundraised every penny and called in every favour we can, both last year and this year.

He also suggested we are part of a larger 'Pride' organisation which would offer funding to smaller Pride events. This is not true. The model for the Pride events that take place up and down the country is that of often small, independent committees with local council funding, private sponsorship or charity fundraising.

The council also compared our event and costs to their own band concerts. This is an unfair comparison. They are hosting multiple small events per year and their costs per event are reduced due to the economy of scale. They also own the park and already have existing waste contracts and paid staff they can utilise. Our Event is a single annual event and we cannot afford to run it at a financial loss, therefore we have increased advertising, utility and performer expenses which require 'upfront' spending. We based our request on the paper submitted for the Lord Lieutenant's party in the park as we feel (financially and logistically) Pride has a closer parity with that event than any other existing Oakham celebration.

We are also supporting and representing an often vulnerable community and need an increased number of volunteers to ensure our event is a safe, friendly and positive space.

It has really saddened us to learn that councillors who should be representing all of us are so ignorant to their local LGBT+ community and would like to throw down the gauntlet to them all, to take the time to learn about diversity, equality and inclusion and to research before offering incorrect information in any council debate. We would be happy to offer education and signposting to all councillors wishing to learn what Pride is and why it exists.

Whether you choose to take this up or not, we'd like to remind you, our community is part of your community and you are there to represent each of us. Please, do a better job.

Oakham Pride 2023, 'Festival of Love' will be taking place on 17 June at Oakham's Cutts Close from 12:30pm until 4:30pm.

Follow the group on Facebook for further updates and more information about the upcoming celebrations.