Doubt still remains over the future of Blencathra Foxhounds’ Boxing Day meet, three weeks after Keswick Town Council asked them to stay away from the town.
In a tradition going back more than 200 years, the hunt gathers in the Market Square on December 26 to allow supporters and the public to meet the hounds.
But growing public opposition to fox hunting, fuelled by allegations of illegal hunts taking place on the Lakeland fells, resulted in the council taking unprecedented action last month.
While they have no power to prevent the meet going ahead, councillors voted eight-to-one to send a letter to the Foxhounds requesting they cancel this year’s gathering in the town centre.
The decision follows two previous occasions in which the vote went the other way.
Following the meeting on November 20, mayor Alan Dunn said: “While the council has no powers to ban the Blencathra hunt from attending, we have the ability to write and to ask them not to attend.
“For the past few years this council has resisted writing said letter for various reasons, my own being that it was another lost traditional event. However, things have changed dramatically since we have last wrote it, and my stance has changed.”
Cllr Dunn was referring to the conviction in October of Mark Hankinson, director of the Masters of the Foxhounds Association, for encouraging the illegal hunting of live foxes behind a ‘smokescreen’ of trail hunting.
According to the council, the Foxhounds have still to respond to the letter – and although the hunt has previously indicated it would accept the decision, there is no indication of whether they intend to abide by the council’s request.
Council clerk Vivien Little told the Reminder: “The letter has been sent, but all we have heard back is that it will be taken before the hunt’s executive committee. I suppose we’ll just have to wait until Boxing Day to find out what they plan to do.”
After gathering in the Market Place the hunt’s traditional route leads to the Mary Hewetson Cottage Hospital, on Crosthwaite Road, before heading out for a trail on nearby fells with the dogs.
Recent gatherings have been attended by anti-hunt protesters, leading to confrontations with the huntsmen and their supporters.
Tony Locke, a member of Cumbria Hunt Watch, said: “They’ve said they wouldn’t come if they were asked by the council, so if they keep their word that’s great. If not, then they are just showing that their word means nothing.”
