This year's Keighley Festival was the most difficult in the event's 11-year history, according to its treasurer.

Long-time committee member Jim Pickles cites resignation of key officials, conflicting funding demands and outside pressure among the problems.

But many of the festival events were successful despite the terrible weather that plagued the June fortnight.

Mr Pickles makes the comments in the festival committee's annual report to Keighley Area Panel, the local arm of Bradford council, which provides a yearly grant of around £14,000.

Mr Pickles says the problems started soon after the 1997 festival when the committee discovered some participants had not been paid. He says: "The matter was put into the hands of Keighley police. The police investigated but no charges were brought."

The committee decided that 1998 events should be 'value for money' to reflect cutbacks in Bradford council's contributions to the voluntary sector. Mr Pickles says the approach caused problems as some bids for funding from local communities exceeded the budgeted amounts. He adds: "Confidence in the communities had been rocked by the alleged misappropriation of funds and the action that had been taken."

The chairman and secretary were being lobbied 'vigorously' by potential participants, and this contributed to their decisions to resign.

Mr Pickles says the resignations meant a loss of expertise and knowledge as well as a shortage of committee members to organise the festival.

A re-think of the festival programme, coupled with police concerns about crowd-management, led to the cancellation of a planned multi-cultural music day. Mr Pickles says: "The programme was drastically reduc-ed. This gave rise to the large underspend of funds."

Mr Pickles reports that street entertainment and some concerts were well-received, Asian sports proved particularly popular, and workshops and talks were poorly supported.

He says new officials were elected and extra committee members recruited following a public meeting.

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