Great news on Brockwell Hall!

Brockwell Hall has been a fixture of Brockwell Park since 1813 although in recent decades has remained underused. We are very pleased to announce that a proposal launched in partnership between Lambeth Council and the Brockwell Park Community Partners to renovate the hall has been initially approved by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

This means that the a programme of work can commence to design both how the hall could be improved and made fully open to the public, as well as looking at how the hall can be used as a venue to host weddings and other events to raise money for the park. The Brockwell Park Partnership Board has reviewed the management structure for this project and it will replicate the management structure for the successful HLF funded projected currently renovating Norwood Cemetery and the programme that repaired the landscape in the park a decade ago.

The first stage of the work is now up and running and it’s aim is to produce a fully working proposal for the hall along with plans for renovation and rebuilding by the end of 2020. After that stage two of the HLF process will being and if all goes well the hall will reopen refurbished and in it’s new role in 2022.

As your Councillors in our 2018 manifesto we committed to moving the park away from reliance on large music festivals as a income generation tool. Due to nearly a decade of austerity – in which the parks budget in Lambeth has been forced by successive Tory led governments Westminster to shrink by millions of pounds – our parks have been struggling for money. Last year a large music festival was held in the park and this year a far smaller version is provisionally set to go ahead. Whilst this will raise money that goes directly into the park this is not sustainable in the long term, even though we have sought to manage music festivals in the park far better than has been done in the past.

To this end we secured a review of the events policy, which is set to to recommend dropping overly disruptive targets for “event days” in the park as well providing further safeguards on events. We also have been looking at other long term measures to regenerate the park such as the regeneration of the football pitches so they can be used by the community and commercially by five-a-side leagues.

We have been working closely with Brockwell Park Community Partners on all of these proposals and they have played a major role in realising these projects. The organisations that make the partnership play a vital role in keeping the park open for the 1000s of people from our community that use it every day. It costs over £8000 a week to keep Brockwell Park running and we are determined to make it immune from the impact of any further budgetary pressure. Community driven projects like these can integrate with the park to provide long term financial stability for Brockwell park.

Park events – let the licensing team know your views

Mighty Hoopla and Cross the Tracks have applied to come to Brockwell Park for a festival on the 8^th and 9^th of June 2019. This will be smaller than last year with fewer festival goers – on present information neither event is set to exceed 20, 000 – and with a considerably smaller amount of the park than was taken up by the Field Day festival last year. We have set out all of the details here – including what the implications will be for the park and more details about how we can move towards more sustainable funding models.

Overall this application represents an improvement on the situation from last year, but there are some concerns about how the festivals will be managed and the clear up afterwards. For full details of the application you can see the official form here.

One of the most important aspects of the approval process is the grant of a license to the festival – this allows them to play live music and sell alcohol and is subject to a very tight legal process, run by the Council’s Licensing Committee. Last year when Field Day and Mighty Hoopla were applying a for a license many residents wrote in commenting on the process and, consequently, a large number of restrictions were placed on the festivals’ operations, relating to noise and security. This had the positive effect of significantly reducing any anti-social behaviour and limiting noise complaints to a handful of cases.

Our view is that the conditions on Field Day’s license last year represent the bare minimum for a festival in Brockwell park and we would ask that any license for Mighty Hoopla and Cross the Tracks should at least match these terms, and go further in some key areas. We want restrictions on closing times in line with the updated licensing policy for the area and enhanced noise restrictions.

It would also be really helpful if residents made their views known to the licensing authority. All it takes is an email to licensing@lambeth.gov.uk with the subject line ‘Mighty Hoopla Representation’.

For all licensing applications please bear in mind that the committee can only take into account applications dealing with the four objectives under the 2003 Licensing Act:

The prevention of crime and disorder;
Public safety;
The prevention of public nuisance;
The protection of children from harm.

Any other matter, such as the repair of the ground or bio-diversity cannot be taken into account by the Licensing Committee.

Cllr Fred Cowell making a representation on behalf of local residents on Field Day and Mighty Hoopla at licensing committee in 2018

Further event consultations are taking place this week run by the organisers, and if you have any questions about licensing policy or process, do get in touch with Cllr Fred Cowell on fcowell@lambeth.gov.uk.

Reminder: meeting this week about Mighty Hoopla in Brockwell Park

As we blogged recently, Mighty Hoopla and a new funk, soul and jazz festival called Cross the Tracks have applied to hold events in Brockwell Park this June.

A reminder that they are holding a community drop-in session this week on Wednesday 27th February. They have two times you can visit, during the day and in the evening:

Time: Midday-3pm and 5-8pm
Location: The Half Moon pub, 10 Half Moon Lane SE24 9HU

There will be an additional community engagement session on Wednesday 13th March 5-8pm at Jubilee Community Hill, Tulse Hill Estate, London SW2 2LY.

If you can’t make either but would like to ask the organisers a questions, they say residents, businesses and community groups are welcome to email them at community@mightyhoopla.com

Field Day Construction and Concerns

The construction of Field Day is now underway in Brockwell Park. As we explained in our earlier post there will be just under two weeks of construction and one week of deconstruction involved in Field Day. In the first week around 70% of all deliveries have been made to the two event sites. Most of what is taking place now is construction.

There have been several complaints, which we have been raised with Field Day about the construction process these have been:

the speeding of vehicles in the park- which the site management team raised with the specific contractors who were speeding ensuring that everyone knew of the 5 mph limit. If you see speeding again get the number plate of the vehicle concerned.
The public not being aware of which paths are open – this was why signage has been put up about which paths are open.
Branches being caught and damaged – Trucks with heavy loads are now taking different routes through the park.
The Norwood-Dulwich Road slip road being closed at peak times – this has now been raised with the traffic management team and the slip road is open outside delivery times to ease traffic congestion.

There have been two health and safety inspections and next week the Councillors, the Council’s events team and Park groups will make further inspections to ensure that the trees, greenery and park furniture are unaffected.

We are also working with Field Day on other aspects of the build. All vehicles being used on site (for non-delivery purposes) are fitted with special grass tires so that they don’t make any marks on the grass, vehicles in the park are accompanied by banksmen at all times with extra staff committed where appropriate.

Areas such as the hard standing area, used by martial arts and other exercise activities, have been left open and should be left open until the start of t festival. Also in line with the requests from groups involved with the BCPC and other groups interested in the park large parts of the final area were left open for as long as possible during the build process.

Next weekend is the festival day and the entire part of the park allocated for the festival will be closed.

All of the above is only possible because concerns have been relayed directly to councillors.

In the next stage of the build we need any comments and concerns to come to us so we can do what we can to rectify them. You can contact Cllr Cowell if you are from Thurlow Park Ward – fcowell@lambeth.gov.uk , abirley@lambeth.gov.uk and PEly@lambeth.gov.uk – and other councillors from Herne Hill and Tulse Hill Ward can be found on the Lambeth site.

This is really important as Field Day is here for a one-year trial process only. After the event there will be a full consultation on the event and whether it is suitable for the park. We are also looking to review the events policy, which governs these events. Therefore every single issue about the the construction process, the event itself, egress and entry, noise and the de-rig is vital to feed into these processes.

Field Day given licence to hold event this summer subject to conditions

Since Lovebox and Field Day made applications to Lambeth last autumn to hold events in Brockwell Park, we have been working hard to ensure residents’ views are listened to. We have knocked on doors in the local area, worked closely with community and park
groups, and organised a public meeting last December to consult Thurlow Park
residents.

Reflecting on what you told us, we established some conditions which we felt large events in Brockwell Park ought to meet – these are set out on our blog here.

In January we were able to successfully push for Lovebox to be turned down as we did not feel that they met our conditions and they were not showing willingness to compromise on their plans.

In March, again reflecting what you have told us, we objected to Field Day being granted a licence unless certain strict conditions were met. Our submission to the Licensing Committee called for shorter opening hours, reduced noise levels and a better-managed exit from the park, in recognition of the fact there was going to be a lot of disruption to local area and that people such as shift workers and children doing their GCSE exams needed better protection.

>> You can read our full submission here.

We fought your case hard and spoke on residents’ behalf at the Licensing Committee hearing. The level of scrutiny of the organisers and the number of residents who spoke meant the hearing went on until midnight.

Cllr Fred Cowell speaking at the Licensing Committee hearing

After a further five days deliberation, the Licensing Committee have decided to award Field Day a one year licence to hold the event in Brockwell Park, subject to certain
conditions. You can view the full decision on Lambeth’s licensing site.

Our views of the decision are:

We had a degree of success in securing an enhanced security plan that is far in excess of anything at previous events in the park.

We are disappointed that the hours have not been reduced as significantly as we asked for, but were able to secure a partial reduction in opening times on Friday and Saturday and a fuller reduction on Sunday evening so that alcohol sales end at 9pm and music will end at 9.30pm.

Most importantly the licence is for this year only and we have secured a post-festival consultation at which we will review how it went and, if necessary, block it from ever coming to the park again.

Outside of the licensing process, we have secured a commitment to review the parks events policy later this year, including looking at a cap on overall numbers at events and a trigger for public consultation, which would affect any event applications for 2019.

In the short term events provide a means of managing the vast funding shortfall that parks are facing as a result of the huge cuts to local authority grants imposed by the
Tory government. In the medium to long term, we want to move away from music festivals as a source of income and are working with park groups and the Council on a project to redevelop Brockwell Hall to allow it to be used for weddings. Brockwell Park is at the very heart of our community and we remain committed to safeguarding it with tangible action not empty promises.

Field Day Licensing Application for Brockwell Park – we want to hear your views

Brockwell park is host to Field Day from the 1-3 of June. This is a much larger commercial event than the park has previously hosted and we are currently working with the organisers on managing and controlling the event.

We understand the concern about large events in Brockwell Park. We fought to block another larger event, Lovebox, from coming to the park, have refused permission for previous events that have not met the standards required in the park to return, and will
be having a post event consultation on whether Field Day comes back to the park next year.

As part of the authorisation process, Field Day has to go through a licensing application. This determines whether under the 2003 Licensing Act it can be granted a licence to sell alcohol and host live music. The Council’s licensing committee then has to review the application. This is a statutory process which is independent from political considerations. The committee is required to take the following four things into account.

the prevention of crime and disorder
the prevention of public nuisance
the promotion of public safety
the protection of children from harm

Field day are currently applying for a licence which runs from midday each day of the festivals and ends at 11pm on Friday and Saturday and 10:30pm on Sunday.

As your local councillors, we have been consistent in engaging with local residents, listening to views and concerns, and working on your behalf. Since Field Day and Lovebox first applied to come to Brockwell park, we have met with many residents’ groups, worked with community and park organisations, doorknocked local streets and organised a public meeting for Thurlow Park residents to have their say. We published our view on this website here before Christmas and lobbied hard to stop Lovebox from coming, and for Field Day to reduce the size of the event.

We are currently drafting a submission for the licensing committee to consider, on behalf of Thurlow Park residents, though we would also like residents to make their own submissions on the application itself, and how the event should be managed.

In particular we would like your views on:

We are concerned about the lateness of the times on all evenings. In particular, we are concerned about the Sunday close time given that GCSE exams are the next day. We would like to move these hours back. What is your view on appropriate hours for the events to finish?
How the dispersal should be managed in order to maximise public safety? – at the moment the plan is to exit largely through the Herne Hill entrance.
Should there be a lower upper limit on the noise than the festivals last summer? There were a number of complaints about the noise and we want to get it right.
Field Day have made some extensive commitments about immediate clear up as
well as a general clear up. Where should there resources be targeted?
Under the terms of the Licensing Act, is there anything else we should take
into account?

To tell us what you think, you can email Cllr Fred Cowell on fcowell@lambeth.gov.uk or respond using our online survey here.