Agenda item

To receive the report.

Dave Coles, Head of Regulatory Services, gave a presentation that provided a debrief on the Glastonbury Festival regulatory work. He explained: the licensing objectives, the pre-event licensing work, and the multi-agency work around the festival; the efficiency savings this year in reduced staffing and vehicle costs of £17,000 and £6,400 respectively, a 41% saving on 2023 costs; an overview of the work of other teams such as traffic management, parking enforcement, communications, public health, and emergency planning.

During the discussion, the following points were raised:

• Why were there more arrivals than departures by train?
  • Not aware of why.
• Regarding costs, what other staff time?
  • The pre-festival work can’t be changed as it needs to be safe.
• Can the statutory license fee be changed?
  • No. Highways have a separate agreement outside the license, that work is fully covered by GFEL.
• Are there going to be issues next year after the restructure?
  • Still working through the structures but we aim to ensure the appropriate monitoring is undertaken at this event.
• Could noise complaints have gone down because people expect noise with the festival?
  • There is a complaints process, we can’t know why people aren’t complaining. There are ample routes for people to make complaints.
• Regarding the volume of helicopters, can we suggest a solution with the CAA and find another safe landing point nearby to avoid near the housing?
  • Glastonbury Festival are looking at how they can reduce the impact of helicopters, but there is not much that can be done from a licensing perspective.
  • May be able to look into that separately from a planning perspective.
• There are complaints about extra traffic from parish councils. How can parish councils get in touch with the organisers and can the organisers come to parish councils to take them on board?
  • GFEL do visit the parish councils and take on board the concerns they have. If they want to contact us directly they absolutely can and we will look into anything not taken on board by festivals. We don’t have the capacity to visit every parish council affects but we are happy to listen to any concerns.
  • The best contact would be through Bev Norman or trafficmanagement@somerset.gov.uk
• The restructure timeline puts us not having the structures set until February/March. Does that create a risk for this process for the 2025 music festival and are there any mitigations?
  • There is minimal risk. Don’t want to comment on restructuring at this meeting. Whatever the outcome we will ensure measures are in place.
• How are officers interacting with local Members? Where is the process for working with us?
  • A fair reflection. We need to do more, we will arrange a meeting at the right time to feed it in, early in the new year.
• One of the objectives is protection of children from harm, would be interested to understand how we do this. Would be happy to receive a written response.
  • Will take this offline.

The Chair concluded the discussion and said he would write to Sarah Dowden, Service Director for Regulatory and Operations, and Dave Coles, Head of Regulatory Services, to understand the difference of opinion with noise complaints, ensuring appropriate teams are on site after transformation, ensuring continuous improvement, investigating the planning status of the site, and ensuring local community and local Member involvement.