Village fete risk assessment: a practical guide

A fete feels too friendly for paperwork — bunting, a cake stall, the school raffle. But the parish council, the landowner and your insurer will all want a risk assessment, and writing one is genuinely useful: fetes have crowds, cash, cars and children in one field.

Start with how the day actually runs

Don't start from a list of generic hazards — start from your running order. Vehicles arrive to set up. Stallholders unload. Gazebos go up. The public arrives, mostly on foot, some parking on the field. Children run between stalls. Somebody's dog is loose. At 5pm everyone packs down at once, in cars, across a field full of stragglers.

Walk that sequence and the real hazards fall out of it naturally — and your assessment will read like your fete, which is exactly what a reviewer wants. The general method is covered in our risk assessment guide; below is what's distinctive about fetes.

The hazards that belong in a fete risk assessment

• Vehicles on the field. The single biggest one. Fix set-up and pack-down windows when the public aren't on site, walk vehicles in at walking pace with an escort if they must move during the event, and keep parking separate from the activity area.
• Gazebos and marquees in wind. Weight or peg every leg, and agree in advance what wind speed takes a stall down. An unsecured gazebo travels surprisingly far.
• Trips — guy ropes, cables, uneven ground, hay bales. Route cables away from walkways; mark what you can't move.
• Food stalls — outside caterers should show you food business registration, public liability insurance and a gas safety record where they use LPG. The committee cake stall is fine — see the FAQ.
• Children's activities — supervision for anything organised, and a lost-child procedure with a named point everyone knows. If there's a bouncy castle, it needs its own attention: see our inflatables guide.
• Animals — dog shows and petting corners need hand-washing and a bit of distance from food.
• Cash — pairs for collections and counting, and don't let one volunteer walk to the bank alone with the day's takings.
• First aid — cover proportionate to your crowd, a first aid point people can find, and someone who knows the field's postcode and access gate for an ambulance.

Permissions and paperwork beyond the risk assessment

Three things catch fete committees out:

• Landowner permission — even the village green usually has a formal owner (often the parish council) who may have their own conditions.
• A Temporary Event Notice if you're selling alcohol — a Pimm's stall counts. TENs are given to the local council at least ten working days ahead, and cover events up to 499 people at a time.
• Insurance — public liability cover for the event itself. Village hall and parish policies sometimes extend to fetes; check rather than assume, and check the cover amount your landowner expects.

If the fete is on council land, the council may also ask for a short event management plan alongside the risk assessment.

Keep it proportionate

A fete risk assessment doesn't need to be long. Two or three pages covering the hazards above, with real names and real decisions, is worth more than twenty pages of pasted boilerplate. The test: could a new volunteer read it and know what to do when the wind picks up or a child goes missing? If yes, it's doing its job.

Review it in the week before the fete — when the forecast, the stall list and the volunteer rota are real rather than hopeful.

Common questions

Do home bakers on the cake stall need food hygiene certificates?

Occasional charity bake sales are generally treated with common sense by environmental health teams — good hygiene at home, clear labelling of allergens where known, and sensible storage on the day. Regular traders are a different matter and should be registered as food businesses. If in doubt, your council's food team will tell you their view in one phone call.

Do we need to close the road for a fete procession?

Any procession or activity on the highway needs the council's involvement — usually a formal road closure with several weeks' or months' notice depending on the council. Our street party guide covers road closures in more detail.

Who signs the risk assessment for a committee-run fete?

Whoever the committee has agreed is the event organiser — typically the chair. One named person, not 'the committee'. That person remains responsible for the event however the paperwork was produced.