Community events are the life and soul of our villages and towns. Collectively each year, they raise very considerable sums of monies for charities and organisations vital to us all, to health services, and to our wider wellbeing.

They are an endless source of fun too, with annual events planned for months in advance. Legions of volunteers give their time, money and effort to make sure their particular event is bigger and better than the ones that have gone before.

And now, after the hiatus brought about by coronavirus, these various events are getting back to full speed.

Except they are not — at least in Ceredigion anyway. There, one might be forgiven for thinking that the lunatics are running the asylum. Ceredigion County Council has decreed that organisers of these events and those who volunteer will need to prove their competency.

Some events have already been cancelled as a result. That New Quay soapbox derby that draws thousands? Not this year. How’s that for a blow to the businesses there trying to make ends meet —your local council will do anything it can to stop you being a success.

Competency? We all know how it would work out if the bureaucrats who dreamt up this red tape nonsense had ever to prove their own competency. The buildings would be empty. Oh no, wait — they are!

This latest twist in the Ceredigion soap opera means volunteers and organisers will have to attend costly courses — at their own expense — to learn about traffic management and land-use criteria before being granted consent to proceed.

As with such proposals of bureaucratic twaddle, the devil is in the details.

Community groups might not be allowed to put up a Christmas tree without someone having experience and competency in land-use policies.

If the North Pole fell in Ceredigion, the reindeers would be parked until the sleigh gets yellow and orange stripes and bright lights, and Santa completed the necessary health and safety courses to be on a roof or near a chimney — while future workshop expansions would be permitted on flood plain!

When are councillors going to take back control and show who’s in charge? Maybe even earn their recent pay increase?

Put this bureaucratic twaddle back in the filing cabinet, FFS — for fun’s sake.