Music event under Peterborough parkway given go-ahead by city councillors

Members of the Licensing Sub-Committee have granted a ‘new premises’ licence for ‘Mixology Music UK’, to hold a large outdoor music event under the Orton Mere Parkway Bridge in Nene Park, which will take place on August 14.

Speaking to members of the committee at their meeting (4 August), Chair, Cllr Scott Warren said: “We must take into consideration the concerns that have been raised in respect of granting this licence as the site is under a busy road and next to the Nene River.”

The Committee heard a number of objections, including one from local resident Clare Watson, who had concerns about the possibility of intoxicated persons falling in the river and drowning.

Speaking on behalf of Mixology Music UK, Dan Coshan: “I am not sure how many lives have been claimed in this section of the Nene, we are aware of a tragic death some 10 years ago, but we want to assure the committee and everybody who has concerns that we have no interest in running an event that puts the safety of the attendees at risk.

“We have a water safety team which includes an open water lifeguard positioned towards the locks and water section adjacent to the bridge. That coupled with stewarding and marshal teams as well as the existing signage and fencing should provide adequate proactive and reactive measures should someone become in need of help.

“The figure you quote of 5,000 people attending is a misconception, and current projections look to be approximately 1,200 attendees.

“Our preferred outcome is to get the licence agreed to and run our event as per our event plan where we have tried to address all the objections that we’ve received.”

Another concern came from Peter and Eleanor Hardingham who were worried that the granting of a licence would allow events to take place 13 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week and 52 weeks-a-year.

Mr Coshan responded: “I’ve been running music events of this nature for the past 25 years, and for the last seven years I currently have a licence for a venue, a bar and a restaurant.

“With every application that I’ve ever made in that time, you always apply for more dates than you will actually ever need or use – that’s just the way that things have always been done.

“We have no desire to run events every day, all day all throughout the year. We know that people don’t want to listen to music 24/7 and we certainly don’t want our venue site to end up as a ‘student campus’.

“We simply want to promote music on specific days in the year for dance music lovers where pubs in the area operate longer opening hours than we are looking to do.”

According to the conditions of the application, ‘Mixology Music UK’ would only be allowed to operate events on twelve concert days per calendar year, and that any live music played would be strictly controlled by a noise monitoring and control system that can be configured to match the circumstances of the event - including whether it is indoors or outdoors.

Furthermore, any event would only be licensed between the hours of 10:00am and 11:00pm, with the applicants having full and total control over traders at the event to ensure that these time constraints were not breached.

Peterborough City Council Licensing Act 2003 Sub-Committee members voted to approve the application for the ‘new venue’ licence, subject to the applicant conforming with all the conditions outlined.