Safety fears postpone 'wonderful' soapbox derby
BBCA popular race featuring home-made vehicles has been postponed due to concerns over public safety and a lack of capacity at its iconic hillside site.
The White Horse Soapbox Derby has been held at the Westbury landmark in Wiltshire since 2022, increasing in popularity every year since.
But event organisers Westbury Town Council said that, following discussions with the police and the local highways team, the derby "cannot be delivered safely or lawfully in its current format".
Mayor Jane Russ said she was "gutted" the "wonderful" event had to be postponed, but said that the council was looking for solutions and that she hoped the event "would come back even better".
"It hasn't come out of the blue. Last year we were very anxious about safety," Russ admitted.
"We put in place stewards and marshals to marshal people walking and people ignored it and when you've got that volume of people moving it becomes really difficult."
The council said that it had been "advised that a licence for the 2026 event cannot be issued" without fundamental safety improvements and that the event had "outpaced the capacity of its current location".
"When we first started, we estimated there were about four thousand people (spectating)," stated Russ.
"We're now in a situation where we are looking at transferring upwards of nine, ten thousand people up very small roads.
"We've become victims of our own success."
'Event will return'
Russ added that the council was actively working to consider alternatives to ensure the event can return.
"We've already had a discussion with Wiltshire [Council] about another site that unfortunately wasn't any better for all kinds of reasons.
"We're going to have a fallow year and come to grips with this in the long-term.
"If it's good enough for Glastonbury to have a fallow year, then it's good enough for Westbury to have a fallow year, and we will come back, hopefully, even better."
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