Magistrates uphold council decision over perpetual licence for festival

Magistrates have dismissed a challenge to Lewisham Council’s decision to grant an events company a perpetual licence to run a two-day music festival on Blackheath every September.

The challenge was brought by the Blackheath Society. But after a six-day hearing, thought to be one of the longest appeals ever in the licensing field, Magistrates in Bromley ruled that the event would not cause excessive noise or disruption.

According to Thisislondon.co.uk, chairman Roger Mills said in his report: “The event will be subject to scrutiny and review each year and will not take place if it cannot meet what is required of it.”

The organisers of the festival, NIMBY Events, described the ruling as “an emphatic win”. This year’s event had been cancelled because of the legal uncertainty, but the judgment paves the way for the festival to be held on the second weekend of September 2012.

The Blackheath Society, which could have to pay up an estimated £80,000 in costs, expressed disappointment at the Magistrates’ ruling. In a statement on its website, the society said: “The Court acknowledged that the appeal was properly brought by the Society. In its judgment the court recognised a number of significant deficiencies in the way the original decision by Lewisham was reached.

“Nevertheless, in what ultimately amounted to a rehearing of the application, at which a very substantial body of new information was eventually provided by NIMBY, the court evidently took comfort from the process of scrutiny by the Council’s Safety Advisory Group (SAG), and the opinion of the Police, and found in favour of upholding the licence as originally granted.”

The flaws are understood to include a failure to notify Greenwich Council and a lack of publicity about the application.

The Society warned that the process of fully granting approval for concerts in future years had “a long way to go”, but said it would seek to work constructively to ensure that any events caused the minimum possible inconvenience to the community.

Lewisham and Greenwich councils have launched a consultation on a draft policy for events on the Heath.