New licence rules are threat to festival
A FESTIVAL is under threat after strict new conditions were added to the licence last night.
It will be impossible to run Stokes Bay Festival next year with a raft of new restrictions that have been put in place, claims the organiser.
The Gosport Tories have pushed through new rules increasing the rent at the council-owned site in Gosport and cutting the hours for live music and the sale of alcohol.
At the full meeting of Gosport Borough Council last night eight Lib Dem councillors declared an interest because of their involvement in the festival and so had to leave the chamber when the item came up.
This gave the Tory party the majority and the chance to add new conditions, including hiking up the rent for the event from £5,000 to £24,000.
They also changed the licence to ban alcohol being served after 9.45pm, and to stop music and entertainment at 10pm – an hour earlier than recommended by council officers.
Festival organiser the Lib Dem councillor Peter Chegwyn says if the new conditions remain they mean the end of the festival in the town. The Tories are against festivals and with the rules they’ve put in place I wouldn’t be able to run a festival at the site and neither would any other organisers,’ he said.
‘They are playing politics and have just done this to ruin an event which is good for the people of Gosport and the economy.’
The new rules apply to any festival at a beauty spot site, but anyone wanting to hold an event there will have the chance to plead their case in front of the full council and secure less restrictive rules.
Cllr Chegwyn said he hoped to see the rules swept away at future meetings.
If someone other than a person involved in council politics was running the four-day festival, the eight Lib Dem councillors who left the chamber would have been able to stay and vote at future meetings, overturning the temporary Tory majority.
Tory leader Mark Hook, who proposed the new rules, said: ‘They could try and overturn this, but they would be foolish were they to.
‘All we’ve done is put down sensible restrictions for the use of Stokes Bay.’
Category: Festival News
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