Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed all present to the meeting.

As the meeting was not being held in the Council Chamber, the meeting would not be webcast.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Winskill.

Councillor Scott attended as a substitute for Councillor Winskill.

There was no such business.

Councillor Scott advised that he was a member of the Alexandra Palace and Park Board, and although this was not a disclosable pecuniary interest, he wished to make the Committee aware of it.

Councillor Egan requested legal advice on the comments made by Councillor Reece that “The Liberal Democrats have opposed plans to massively increase the number of concert days at Finsbury Park”, and asked whether this meant that all Liberal Democrats would have a prejudicial interest in the policy.

Alison Vydulinksa – Legal – advised that as the purpose of the meeting was to make a decision on the call-in and not the policy, the Liberal Democrat members would not have a prejudicial interest.

The Chair advised that there would be seven deputations made by local residents.

Konrad Borowski – Stroud Green Residents Association

Mr Borowski had previously addressed the Cabinet at the meeting on 17 December 2013 where the decision had been made.  He felt that the consultation seemed to have been ignored, and it had been presented to residents as a Finsbury Park consultation, not as a wider policy.

The Stroud Green Residents Association requested that the decision be referred back to the Cabinet for them to reconsider the policy and reduce the days back to the 2002 policy, which was for five one-day events.  This generally resulted in the five days being spread over two weekends, rather than five separate events.

The income target for Finsbury Park was £165k.  Based on Mr Borowski’s calculations (using figures from the report), a two day event would produce an income of £378k, and a three day event would produce £450k – a total of £828k, which was significantly more than the income target.  It was therefore difficult to understand why the number of event days needed to increase when the existing five days more than met the income target.

 Each event also required set up and take down time – increasing the event days to fifteen would result in an extra ten weeks of disruption.

Martin Ball – Friends of Down Lane Park

Mr Ball raised deep concern over the exploitation of park areas in the borough.  Parks were public places for residents, and should not be for sale.  Consideration should be given to local people.

Events in parks had not been well managed and had caused disruption to the local environment and people.  It was unrealistic to expect that events were not going to take place, but they needed to be managed in a better way.  The scale of events currently being held was out of context with the size of the parks.

If the policy was not sent back to the Cabinet, it would set a precedent for other events.

Lynn Percival – Friends of Finsbury Park

Ms Percival presented the Committee with a petition containing over 400 signatures from local people who felt that the consultation had not been carried out correctly.

Friends of Finsbury Park were not completely against events in the park, but there were concerns that the recreational use of the park was lost when events took place.  There were also safety issues, accessibility issues, and the affect on wildlife.

The local community already had to put up with five event days in a year, increasing this to fifteen was excessive.  The set up and take down of events was extremely disruptive to park users – the trucks destroyed the grass, fence panel and trees had been broken, and people were unable to use large areas of the park.

Friends of Finsbury Park were keen to work with the Council in order to protect the park.

In response to a question from the Chair, Ms Percival explained that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.

i)          Report of the Monitoring Officer TO  FOLLOW

ii)         Report of the Director of Place and Sustainability TO  FOLLOW

iii)       Appendix (for information only)

a)    Copy of the ‘call-in’

b)    Draft minute extract of the Cabinet decision of 17 December 2013

c)    17 December 2013 Cabinet report - HARINGEY OUTDOOR EVENT POLICY

A decision on the above item was taken by Cabinet at the meeting on 17 December 2013.  The decision has been called in, in accordance with the provisions set out in the Council’s Constitution, by Councillors Wilson, Winskill Solomon, Allison and Reece.

Councillor Reece introduced the call-in:

·                The damage to the park from major events was extensive.  Information on how the damage would be repaired was required.  Hyde Park had reduced the number of events in the park due to the damage caused by them.

·                Objections to the policy had been received from both Islington and Hackney, yet this did not seem to have been taken into account.

·                Cross-borough co-ordination was required.  The Police have stated that they would not be able to cope with an event at Emirates and Finsbury Park at the same time.

·                A consultation had been held with the Stroud Green Residents Association, but this had not been advertised to all members of the public.

·                There were issues around the budget – what would happen to the income from events? 

·                Had benchmarking exercises been carried out with other comparable parks with regards to charges?

·                The policy states that there would be no major events in the school holidays, but this would probably lead to events taken place over a 10 week period from May-July, which would restrict the use of the park for local residents.

·                The closure of the Oxford Road gate would not necessarily stop people from congregating in that area, as many would visit the Faltering Fullback pub on that road.

·                It was suggested that the policy should be put on hold, to see how the next two events were managed, and then the policy could be revisited after this time.

Councillor Bevan responded to the call-in, and the deputations made:

·                Since becoming Cabinet Member for Environment, he had become aware of the deterioration in Finsbury Park.  It was clear that investment was required to maintain standards in parks.

·                The Council was taking independent advice to ensure that the charges to hire the park were high enough.

·                7000 leaflets had been distributed to local residents – only 262 responses had been received, with only 182 from Haringey.  This indicated that there were not many people who had concerns.

·                Privatisation of the parks had been considered to save money, and then decided against.  Therefore it was important to make money to maintain the standards.  Finsbury Park alone cost £350k per year to run.

·                With regard to event clashes, there was a process to check whether events were running at the Emirates at the same time as Finsbury Park.

·                He offered residents the opportunity to be involved in the monitoring of events.

Councillor Bevan and officers responded to questions from the Committee:

·                The assumptions in the policy with regard to set up times was based on the theory of having 15 event days, in order to set up the policy.  In reality, it was not known how the events would work i.e. 15 separate days or 5 events over 3 days.  In the last five years there had not been many large concerts – an increase in the policy did not necessarily mean that all 15 event days would be used.

·                The average income over the past five  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16.