Coulter balloon event grounded by Church

Scotair Balloons boss Graeme Houston ran into an unholy row when his fallback venue for the show at Coulter was shot down in flames by the Church of Scotland.

It was just the latest in a series of blows to hit the 44-year-old Skirling man's attempts to stage the Biggar Bike and Balloon Festival.

Graeme still believes that his original plan to hold the festival at Biggar Showfield would have been a bonanza for local shops, restaurants and pubs, bringing 20,000 people to Biggar Showfield if it had gone ahead as first scheduled from July 30 to August 1.

His fallback plan, to stage a more modest charity event in Coulter, then went down like a lead zeppelin when the owners of the field he planned to stage it on — the village kirk — suddenly asked for 5000 up front to cover any possible damages.

Graeme said: "I thought it was very cruel of the Church of Scotland to do what it did, especially when this event was to raise money for Erskine Hospital.

"In today's troubled world it would have been nice to find a

little humility and common ground to make this event happen."

A Church of Scotland spokesman said: "The Church gave the organisers every opportunity to provide written confirmation that there was

adequate insurance for the event, something which was declined.

"We tried to be reasonable and accommodating because the event was raising money for a good cause but due to these serious

concerns we had to refuse permission for our land to be used."

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