Blue Rock Festival Statement
The volunteers and supporters who run the community focused Celtic Blue Rock art and music festival are dismayed by the negativity of the Pembrokeshire County Council Licensing Authority.
The festival is a community non-profit organisation and totally reliant on the support of volunteers to ensure the music and cultural event can take place each year.
The whole ethos of Celtic Blue Rock is promoting music, art and culture while highlighting environmental, horticultural and renewable energy initiatives in the local and wider community. Local young bands and artists have a chance to perform to large audiences and hopefully boost their confidence.
The local authority decided to take court action against the voluntary organisation in October 2008; action based mainly on photographs taken at the August 2007 event. The authorities had then 12 months to present their case and decided to present the court summons on the 31st of July 2008, the day prior to the start of the 2008 community event. The volunteers were again astounded at the callous timing when all focus was on running another professional event for 2008.
The summons issued by the local licensing authority highlighted issues such as, they took a photo of a dog on the festival field, that there was mud on the festival field and that a family had been left to collect their tickets from the ticket office.
The festival organisers ensured that all their funds are spent on a professional and safe event and have spent over £50,000 this year alone on contractors. The organisers feel that the case bought against them was totally unfounded and an over reaction by local authority officials but the fact that the council had issued costs of £12,000 and then wished to fine the voluntary group on three cases of breaching the licence meant that, along with their solicitor's costs, the community group could be left facing £40,000 worth of cost. [The community regularly gives all the profits from the events to good causes as well as supporting local youngsters with musical training sessions.] Due to the fact that the community group holds very little funds in reserve they had no option but to plead guilty and explain the unreasonable action to the magistrates.
As part of the local authorities' actions, they interviewed several voluntary organisers using taped 3 hour interviews. Most local volunteers are native Welsh speakers and requested that the interview be conducted in Welsh. When seeing the evidence forwarded to the courts the volunteers were further dismayed by the overwhelming inaccuracies of recording their comments in Welsh. The voluntary group has always thought that the Welsh Language would be given equal status by local authorities, but feel this is not the case in Pembrokeshire.
The court hearing has now taken place in Haverfordwest Magistrates court and the Community group's solicitors conveyed effectively how the voluntary festival organisers have ensured that the event was run professionally and safely. Even though the community group had to plead guilty, the result of the case was that the festival was conditionally discharged and no fines issued against the Celtic Blue Rock. The council’s costs of £12,000 were scrutinised at court and the community festival managed to reduce the amount payable to £3,500.
The voluntary group are now starting a petition campaign to ask the Welsh Assembly Government to look at the situation and offer community groups alternative, fairer licensing conditions. Currently such community and voluntary groups have to take on the same rules as large nightclubs and commercial events. To print off the petition and view further details please visit the festival website on www.celticbluerock.org.uk
The Celtic Blue Rock also feels that the local authorities’ waste of public money was shameful, they even called out the police helicopter from Carmarthen to take aerial photos as evidence on more than one occasion. It would be far better for Pembrokeshire County Council to support community activities so that people of all ages can take part in events led by local volunteers and supporters.
On a cheerier note, following a surge of requests for the Celtic Blue Rock 2009 festival vouchers to be made available as Christmas Gifts, the voluntary organisers have now re-launched their website and an early bird discounted entry voucher is available up to the end of December when the price will increase from £25 to £30 on the first of January 2009.
Celtic Blue Rock wishes to thank all those who have supported the community festival while being challenged at court by the Local Authority.
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written by Decsee, 10, December, 2008
written by Joe, 17, November, 2008
