Rock festival organisers failed to secure licence

Herefordshire Council has announced that it ‘bent over backwards’ to help the organisers of the proposed Rock n Roots Festival, which was due to take place over August Bank Holiday at Much Marcle, but organisers failed to fulfil their obligations to enable the necessary licence to be issued.

Herefordshire Council’s regulatory sub-committee had no alternative this week (Wednesday 13 August) but to decide that it could not issue a licence due to a combination of errors in the way the application was made.

The promoter failed to display sufficient notices on the site to comply with the regulations, the promoter failed to place the required public notice in a local newspaper and he also failed to serve the application on the police. 

Councillor John Jarvis, cabinet member for environment, said: “The promoter has tried to blame the council for this, saying that the decision will harm the local music scene but this is far from the truth.

“Herefordshire Council supports a great number of diverse events each year – including the enormously successful Big Chill near Ledbury – to smaller, more local music and food/drink festivals. We welcome the opportunity to host new events and actively encourage people who wish to take advantage of our beautiful countryside and wonderful facilities, to approach us with ideas.

“However, these events have to be professionally managed and licences applied for in the usual way in line with stringent national legislation, which the council itself has to follow and is monitored on.

“In this instance, the local community was up in arms because the organiser of the festival had not communicated with them via the necessary public notices and made them aware of the implications for the community in holding this large festival in Much Marcle. The council’s regulatory sub-committee had to consider all these issues and decided that the application had not been properly made.

“The situation could have been avoided if the correct information had been provided in the first place. The applicant was helped extensively with making the application and the licensing team bent over backwards to help the processing of the application. Organisers of all events are strongly encouraged to make contact with the licensing team at a very early stage in the planning of an event. 

“We are aware that people will be disappointed if they have purchased tickets and we will be monitoring the situation regarding refunds” he added.