The owner of a small business who was unable to trade during the Bolton Food and Drink Festival due to storm damage is urging people to come out and show their support for her and other traders affected at the next Bolton artisan market.

A number of traders were left gutted after they were left without stalls at the festival after Storm Lilian battered the town.

Bolton Council said that some stalls suffered the worst damage - and encouraged people to support the 'outstanding traders' at the popular artisan market. 

The festival itself had to be delayed by a day.

Sarah Aspden from Blackburn runs Sarah Aspden Card and Crafts.

She was due to trade on Newport Street over the weekend but due to extensive damage caused it meant that there were not enough gazebos available for everyone.

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She said: “Me and others were allowed to go and set up our display stands and leave stock in the gazebos on the Thursday.

“I received a call at about 6am on Friday from the council saying that there had been storm damage and asked if we wanted to go down to check it out.

“As I walked around the corner from the town hall, I could see the utter devastation even from a distance.

“I never imagined it would be so bad and was gutted. It was just awful.”

Sarah organises a monthly artisan market at Heaton Fold Garden Centre and had arranged for more than 20 of the vendors to also have stalls at the food festival.

They worked together to try and clear the debris and salvage stock but 12 of the venders were left with nowhere to trade.

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She added: “I had to ring all the other traders and let them know what had happened.

“Because there were so many things going on, the council couldn’t source more gazebos to replace the ones which had been damaged.

“In the end, it meant that I couldn’t trade at all this weekend.

“I felt numb to be honest. Because I wasn’t only a trader, but I had also arranged for others to have stall there, it had a double impact.

“I broke down in tears once I’d had time to process what had happened. It’s been heart-breaking.

 “I want to thank our customers who have been sending lovely messages of support which I was so grateful for and my husband Mark has been amazing.

“If people want to support us, they can come along to our next artisan market at Heaton Fold in September.”

Sarah had created extra stock to sell at the event and says she has now lost a “substantial amount of money”.

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She said: “It’s not just about the weekend, it’s all the hard work leading up to it such as increasing the stock.

“We couldn’t be moved into a building as most of the council-owned ones were already being used that weekend.

“There was simply not enough space to accommodate us in the end.

“I understand it’s a big event and this was out of their control, but they need to have a better contingency plan for freak weather to avoid it happening again.”

A spokesperson for Bolton Council said: “We were extremely disappointed that the Friday of the festival could not go ahead, and the impact this had on our stall holders.

“The positioning of our arts and crafts stalls along Newport Street meant that traders in this area were unfortunately among the worst damaged by Storm Lilian.

“As with all major events there was a comprehensive events plan in place, but the gusts in the town centre were much higher than forecast which meant the delays was unforeseeable and unavoidable.

“We would urge the public to show their support for these outstanding traders by attending the regular artisan markets at the council-owned Heaton Fold Garden Centre.”

The artisan markets take place on the fourth Sunday of every month from 10am to 3pm.

The next one is on September 22.