Administration hitch for Royal Welsh Show exhibitors

Cattle and sheep exhibitors heading for this summer’s Royal Welsh Show are submitting their entries using multiple names to overcome restrictions on the number of permitted exhibits.

Record-breaking entries are what every agricultural show aspires to but lack of space means the Royal Welsh Show has had to cut back on numbers.

The site at Llanelwedd, Builth Wells, has come under pressure large numbers of cattle and sheep entries as well as requests for parking for livestock vehicles and exhibitors’ caravans.

The show organisers admit the situation has become an administrative nightmare.

Some exhibitors have already been told they won’t be able to park their caravans next to their stock because of strict licensing regulations relating to the spacing of caravans at the showground.

More than 1300 caravans park on and around the showground during the week of the show.

Society officials have been forced to locate exhibitors who are entering either a single cattle entry or two sheep and want a caravan pitch on a site two miles from the showground.

For exhibitors like Simon Davies it means showing fewer cattle than he had planned. Instead of exhibiting five animals from his Castellhyfryd Holstein herd he is limited to four.

He can understand why the organisers have had to cut back and believes it could improve the standard overall.

“They are trying to accommodate everyone so I guess people will only bring their very best animals,” says Mr Davies, of Brynhyfryd Farm, Carmarthenshire.

“People from all over the country exhibit at the Royal Welsh Show and when they have been once they tend to come back every year. It’s extremely well organised and that’s why people like it.”

Mr Davies says some exhibitors are getting around the entry restrictions by entering animals in several different names. “Some exhibitors want to bring up to 12 animals so they are doing so by not entering them all under one name,” he says.