OSWESTRY Town Council has vowed to take on board comments, after complaints were received following last weekend’s Balloon Carnival.

But it says the event was still a big success and helped to ‘bring business to the town’.

Thousands of people flooded the town centre and Cae Glas Park to enjoy two days of balloon flights and activities.

But some complaints were made over a lack of car parking, leading to issues in residential streets, while Darren Davies, who runs The Old Coffee Pot in Church Street, said he was left ‘out of pocket’ after food stalls at the carnival were placed right in front of his cafe.

“Our place is for the people of Oswestry – but nobody could see our shop,” he said. “We expected it to be a record weekend but our business really suffered.

“We’d had balloons up advertising burgers and hotdogs, and obviously we have our coffees.

“And we were told it was going to be a European market selling different foods, but a burger van was parked right outside.

“There were blue markings on the ground where the stalls were to be, and the vans were huge, they went over the marks and completely blocked our window – we even had people eating food from the stalls on our steps and coming in to use our toilets without asking.

“I hope the carnival carries on every year for the town, but it was a devastating blow for us as a business.”

Arren Roberts, town clerk, wanted to reassure people that the council will take the feedback on board.

He said: “The event was a big success. Local businesses benefitted from it too.

“We are very grateful for the feedback though and we will definitely take it on board. It’s important to hear from local businesses.”

Oswestry Business Improvement District (BID), who were involved in the organising and running of the event, have also promised to take feedback – ‘both negative and positive’ – forward to make improvements.

A spokesperson said: “We had emailed all of the BID businesses to say there would be food stalls along Church Street and we did ask if any of them would like to buy a pitch – but we understand that some wanted to just trade from their shops instead of paying for a pitch.

“We do appreciate the feedback and it will be used to help plan next year’s. All feedback is good, whether it be positive or negative.

“People all over the UK attended and it did help put Oswestry BID on the map, but we will be speaking with businesses now to help plan future events.”