GET THE LATEST NEWS FROM ACROSS THE COUNTY IN YOUR INBOX SIGN UP Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

A meeting about Brexit in Cheltenham has been cancelled after the organiser said he was worried people might throw things at each other.

The fear of trouble at the event at the Sandford Park Alehouse in High Street this coming Saturday led to owner Grant Cook calling it off.

He said he had instigated the meeting, with Cheltenham MP Alex Chalk accepting his invitation to provide an update on the situation.

Mr Cook said he had hoped to get the facts about the deal being worked on for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.

But he said he had second thoughts after issuing tickets to dozens of people, seemingly from different sides of the Brexit argument.

He suspected that people “wanted to come along and turn it into a bun fight”.

With 60 tickets having been issued, he said he would have had to put out chairs for people to sit on and that would have made it hard to deal with any trouble.

Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now

He said: “If people started throwing things at each other, we wouldn’t be able to get to them. It wouldn’t be safe. Essentially, it’s a health and safety issue.”

(Image: Gloucestershire Live)

Mr Cook also said he was only licensed to have 50 people in the room so there was a risk of breaking the rules if everyone with tickets turned up.

He added that he had apologised to Mr Chalk and to other people, via social media, for cancelling the event at short notice.

He was unsure whether he would rearrange it.

The Liberal Democrats’ prospective parliamentary candidate for Cheltenham, Max Wilkinson, claimed Mr Chalk had cancelled the event.

This was despite Mr Cook having said it was he who instigated the meeting and made the decision to cancel it.

Mr Wilkinson said: “Alex Chalk is running scared because he knows his Conservative friends have no grip on Brexit and nor does he.

“By cancelling his event, which would have been nothing more than a PR stunt anyway, he’s confirmed what we’ve known all along - he cannot reconcile what he’s doing in Westminster with what he’s been telling people in Cheltenham.

“The Liberal Democrats are a pro-European party and we make no secret of that, but whether you voted leave or remain you deserve an MP who will front up on the most important issue of the day.

Download the Gloucestershire Live app Gloucestershire Live now has an app. You can get all the latest news, sport and lifestyle that matters to you in an easy-to-use, clear format. You can also choose to receive notifications when the biggest stories break so you're always keeping pace with what's happening locally. You can download the app now, just search for Gloucestershire Live in your app store.

“We’ve been given the excuse that the room ‘isn’t big enough’, but it was a ticketed event so that just doesn’t hold true.”

A spokesman for the Conservatives said: “Alex regularly meets his constituents to discuss Brexit and was looking forward to this event. It's disappointing that it had to be cancelled but he respects the decision.”