THE date for Johnstone Gala Day has been put back, with organisers becoming “disillusioned” by a lack of support.

Thousands of people attend the annual celebration, which is one of the highlights of the town’s social calender.

This year’s event is being run by Johnstone Community Council (JCC) and young people from Erskine Music and Media Studio.

However, there were concerns it might be scrapped after organisers had problems accessing funds from the Local Area Committee (LAC) in time to apply to Renfrewshire Council for a licence.

The delay in securing funding has seen the date of the gala day being pushed back to Sunday, August 27.

Wilma Dean, a JCC member, believes the gala day is suffering from the council’s focus on the bid to gain UK City of Culture status for Paisley in 2021.

She said: “The council have been unsupportive and people are starting to get disillusioned by it.

“I would say Johnstone is being put on the back burner because of Paisley 2021.

“We’ve had quite a few problems in terms of trying to get the gala day organised.

“We didn’t get the money from the Local Area Committee in time for us to lodge an application for a licence that would allow us to hold the gala when we wanted to.

“We’ve had to put it back a week but, at one point, we were discussing pushing it back to next year.”

Funds of £4,000 for the gala day have now been approved by the council.

The event will feature a host of stalls, a tug-of-war contest, a bouncy castle and a dog show.

A council spokesman said: “Funding for the gala day was agreed at the meeting of the Johnstone and the Villages LAC on June 15.

“The group was awarded the full requested amount of £4,111 to facilitate a variety of means, including staging, licensing, equipment and marquee hire costs.

“We have been in discussions with the community council over the correct process to allow us to release the funds and the group was issued with the appropriate documents on June 28 and again on July 10.”

"The community council were also advised of the licensing process and given guidance on how to complete this correctly.

“The group failed to return the necessary documentation until July 14, which caused a delay in the council’s ability to transfer the funds to the group or award a licence for the event.

“As the correct paperwork has now been received, the grant can be awarded and will be transferred to the group in the coming days and the licensing application will be processed in line with council policy.

“The council is extremely supportive of community events and looks forward to seeing this fantastic event taking place.”