BARRY’S annual Remembrance Day parade is at risk, after the town’s Royal British Legion branch was told it would have to fork out £1,000 to hold the event.

Barry Town Council this month wrote to the Royal British Legion Barry branch, advising members that the Vale Council would require the payment to cover the costs of a formal temporary road closure.

Up until last year, the police took responsibility for road closures, and covered the Remembrance Day parade free of charge.

However, in May this year, police advised the Vale Council of their new policy not to provide closures, but to refer event organisers to the council.

And the council says the public should not bear the cost on behalf of the Legion.

The Legion members, accompanied by a band, members of the scouting movement, and air and sea cadets, normally parade from King Square to the memorial to Barry’s merchant seamen on Holton Road, before marching to Gladstone Road and assembling for the Remembrance Sunday ceremony at the Cenotaph outside the Memorial Hall But this year’s march could be confined to a turn around the Memorial Hall car park ahead of the wreath-laying ceremony, because the Legion’s Barry branch members say they will not – and cannot - stump up the cash necessary.

RBL Barry branch chairman John Hobbs said the Vale Council had this year given them a grant for £250, but they would refuse to pay the new £1000 charge – which would have to come out of the money they raise selling poppies, which goes towards the welfare of servicemen and women and their families.

Great-granddad John, 78, who left the RAF in 1953 and was with 614 Squadron at Llandow Auxillary until it disbanded in 1957, said: "I think it’s disgusting.

"One of the reasons men died was to give us the freedom to march the streets, and all we are doing is honouring their memory.

"And as well as remembering the dead, the Legion does not forget the living.

"It’s heartbreaking to think they could deny us the parade.

"As I march down Holton Road each year, I see the men standing with children on their shoulders and the housewives who turn out as well," he added.

"But we will have to put plan B into action, which is to line up in the Memo car park, march around the corner at the back of the Memo, and out to the cenotaph."

Vale Council head of visible services, Miles Punter, described the situation in which local authorities and event organisers found themselves since the police withdrawal of road closure arrangements as ‘unfortunate’.

He said: "The costs quoted to the Royal British Legion, and other event organisers, represents our standard costs for road closure orders.

"It would not be appropriate for these costs to be borne by council tax payers.

"We have every sympathy with the Royal British Legion and are taking legal advice to investigate if there is an alternative method of road closure order that will better suit the organisers and, as importantly, protect the council from any liabilities associated with such.