JAZZ fans are to protest today against Ealing Council’s planned cuts to the much-loved Ealing Jazz Festival.

The July festival in Walpole Park, which started in 1985, ran for eight days in its heyday and is now being cut down from five to just two.

More than 1,770 people have signed an online petition to ‘save the festival from decimation’.

The festival’s co-founder Dick Esmond, who will be at this evening’s protest, said: “They’ve cut a success story.

“They have just turned their backs on us and treated us with contempt.

“Because they don’t know about the music. They don’t care. They’re basically philistines.”

He also voiced his disgust at being removed from his role of artistic director by the council.

“I am yesterday’s news, they have airbrushed me out,” he said. “I don’t exist. Isn’t that disgusting?”

Save the Ealing Jazz Festival are encouraging fans to meet outside the council building to protest at 6.30pm on Tuesday April 12.

The petition is to be presented to Northolt West End Councillor Bassam Mahfouz, cabinet member for environment, transport and leisure.

The demonstration’s organiser Phil Brewin said: “We’ve spent two or three months now getting the council to answer our questions and they haven’t done that adequately.”

Andrew Butcher, Saving the Ealing Jazz Festival’s chairman, said he hoped the protest would give them direct contact with the council before it was too late for them to rethink their plans.

Ealing Council has outsourced management of the festival since 2009 to private contractor The Event Umbrella (TEU), who now also sponsor the event.

An Ealing Council spokesman said: "Ealing Jazz Festival is not under threat and is still an important part of our summer programme.

“The council is being forced to significantly reduce the subsidy for the Ealing Summer Festival events from £122,000 to £72,000 across all the festivals.

“Rather than compromise on quality; we have focused the jazz programme to one weekend which has always proven the most popular, with 70 per cent of visitors coming on those days last year."

But Ian Proud, Conservative Ealing Councillor for Cleveland, said: “They claim it’s the cuts; they’ve got £18 million surplus this year so far and what they’re doing is they’re putting money in the reserves and starving services.

“They’ve got £18 million surplus which they didn’t expect and they could easily transfer some of that across to make sure the jazz festival continues.”

Ealing Jazz Festival will run from Saturday July 23 to Sunday 24 July this year at Walpole Park, Mattock Lane.

It is in its 31st year and started at The Plough in Northfield Avenue.

The petition can be found here.