The organisers of a series of music festivals due to take place in Brockwell Park, south London, later this month may be forced to remove stages and fences days earlier than planned.
That’s a possible outcome of a legal battle over planning law taking place in the High Court today.
Local residents have brought a court case seeking to stop events company Summer Events Ltd running five festivals across the last two weekends in May, and leaving stages and fences in the park until the middle of June.
Campaign group Protect Brockwell Park is seeking a court order blocking the Brockwell Live series of music festivals, which are set to kick off this Bank Holiday weekend. The 500,000 sq m park is surrounded by the Herne Hill, Tulse Hill, West Dulwich and Brixton areas of south London.
The group claims that in recent years, Brockwell Park’s roster of community events has mushroomed into a series of large-scale, ticketed festivals that block off large parts of the park with 3m-high fences for weeks on end and damage the park.
Protect Brockwell Park’s legal case focuses on the permitted development rules used by Lambeth Council to give the events the green light.
Lambeth is the planning authority responsible for the park, it owns the park in trust on behalf of the public and it’s a partner of the Brockwell Live series of event.
Under permitted development rules, temporary use of the park for up to 28 days per year is allowed without added planning permission as long as a General Permitted Development Order is applied for.
However, in court today, Protect Brockwell Park’s lawyer Richard Harwood KC said Brockwell Live takes the total temporary use of the park over 28 days, and the council made an error when it granted the permission.
The permission granted runs from the day before the festival season starts on 23 May but Harwood told the court the organisers start installing the fences from 11 May and fences and some of the stages remain until 16 June. That takes it well over the 28-day limit, he added. In addition, Pines & Needles, an outdoor Christmas tree shop, had already accounted for four temporary use days in the year.
As the permission was granted using a miscalculation of the number of days of alternative use, it should be rescinded, Harwood said.
Even so, the judge, Mr Justice Mould, said a “practical” outcome might not be an order banning the festival but, instead, the organisers might have to clear up the site earlier.
Mr Justice Mould said while the legal question being asked was whether the permission was valid, the question “on the ground” is “whether the festival is able to bring itself within the permitted development rules”.
“I fear, from the point of view of your client,” he said to Harwood, “that if the organisers were able to get their skates on and clear away [the stages] by close of play on 3 June, then they are within the” permitted development rules.
The first festival scheduled is Wide Awake on 23 May, followed by Field Day on 24 May, Cross the Tracks on 25 May and City Splash on 26 May. Mighty Hoopla takes place on 31 May and 1 June.
The Lambeth County Show uses the fenced off area on the weekend of 7 and 8 June, but it doesn’t need the fences and stages and the event isn’t categorised as an alternative use of the park.
The judge said he will give judgment tomorrow.
Image © Estates Gazette
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