Laura Bagshaw SPECULATION was mounting this week about Great Yarmouth's chances of hosting this year's T4 on the Beach. A campaign to get the hugely- popular event back on Yarmouth's golden sands has attracted almost 8,500 signa-tures after it was launched on social networking site Facebook last April.

Laura Bagshaw

SPECULATION was mounting this week about Great Yarmouth's chances of hosting this year's T4 on the Beach.

A campaign to get the hugely- popular event back on Yarmouth's golden sands has attracted almost 8,500 signa-tures after it was launched on social networking site Facebook last April.

And within the past two weeks a campaign supporter referring to herself as an “insider” has posted a message claiming the event will be back in Yarmouth for 2009.

Channel 4's Pop Beach was launched in Yarmouth in 2003 and hosted in the town the following year. Then, in 2005, the event moved to Weston-Super-Mare and was renamed T4 on the Beach.

The message on the website reads: “Good news guys, word on the inside is that 'due to transport issues' T4 will be back in Great Yarmouth in 2009!”

However, a spokeswoman for Chan-nel 4 said this week that no decision had been made about this year's venue and a decision would be taken in the coming months.

“It's very early days,” she said.

T4 on the Beach, which has counted Girls Aloud, Blue and Dannii Minogue among its featured acts, drew 30,000 revellers to the town.

Conservative councillor and cabinet member for tourism Graham Plant told the Mercury this week that the borough council would only support the event if it complemented seafront traders.

Referring to proposals put forward by Channel 4 in 2005, Mr Plant said the council could not agree to conditions proposed by concert producers resulting in the channel having its own refreshment and food stalls, hitting the trade of existing seafront businesses.

He said: “We were not in a position to agree to that; we cannot tell seafront traders they can't trade. Whether their position has changed I don't know, but we would be quite happy to welcome them back under the original conditions when it was staged here in 2003 and 2004.”

Mr Plant agreed that an event like T4 on the Beach brought in masses of visitors but added: “We are not going to work against our seafront traders.”

To support the return of Pop

Beach to Yarmouth visit www.t4yarmouth.freewebspace.com

Would you like to see T4 on the Beach staged in Yarmouth? Write to the Mercury at 169 King Street, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk,

NR30 2PA, or email anne.edwards@

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