Agenda item

To receive an update on Finsbury Park Events.

The report was introduced by Cllr Emily Arkell, Cabinet Member for Culture, Communities & Leisure as set out in the agenda pack at pages 93 – 100.

This report provided a summary of the current position regarding:

• The income generated from major events in Finsbury Park,
• What that income had been spent on
• The impact of that funding on other parks.

The borough held a number of major events in Finsbury Park every summer with over 10,000 people in attendance. This year, there had been two weekends with major events which included the Wireless Festival and the Krankbrother event.

Since 2012, the council had generated £8.7 million from events, and of that £7.4 million had come directly from events hosted in the park. The income had varied year on year both as the popularity of events had increased, but also following the impact of the Covid-19 restrictions during 2020 and 2021. This year, the income generated from events was approximately £1.27 million.

There were four key areas of spending of the income generated in the park which included:

• Money being reinvested in the park to improve or add new facilities in the park.
• Funded the base level of management that all parks in the borough received.
• Spending on an additional level of staffing resources dedicated to Finsbury Park.
• Spending on the cost of the events team who generated the income and managed the delivery of the events.
• There had been no major events during 2020-21 and this had been down to Covid.

The following arose during the discussion of this agenda item:

a)    The money generated from major events at Finsbury Park, would not contribute towards any of the maintenance and up keeping of any other parks in the borough.

b)    In terms of the events team at Finsbury Park coving other events, the Committee was advised that events were also held in other parks and part of the events team cost was met from other events, but the lions share 93-95% was funded by events in Finsbury Park.

c)    In terms of the base level of service for the park, Finsbury Parks Management forms part of the wider management of parks in the borough and received input from a range of shared service delivery including playground maintenance, machinery, grass cutting, The Conservation Volunteers, and other similar services.

d)    Most of the funding for the parks came from events. It was noted that over time, the money the Council provided to fund Finsbury Park had been replaced by the income generated from these events. As a result, Finsbury Park benefitted from maintaining and improving the park and did not fall into a position where savings had to be made elsewhere in the borough.

e)    The Committee sought for clarification regarding the spending of the income generated by Finsbury Park as the report highlighted that the overall cost of maintaining the park in 2022-23 was circa £1.61m. Officers confirmed that the Council still provided funding to Finsbury Park every year and was not fully funded by events or any other income. For instance, the £467,420 of investments for 2022-23, £300,000 of that had come from Council capital outside of the Finsbury Park income budget.

f)     The Committee requested for a clearer breakdown on the figures presented in the expenditure and income table (Appendix A)

Action: To provide the Committee with updated table with breakdown of figures (Officer)

g)    In terms of contracts held with major event companies, any planned events would be subject to licensing agreements every year and the event would need to be in line with the licencing requirements. Processes would be reviewed and adjustments would be made year on year.

h)    In response to a follow up question regarding increasing the level of income from the events companies, the Committee was advised that Finsbury Park was generating similar income to other large parks in London, for example Victoria Park and Finsbury Park had generated a similar amount of money from 2 weekends of similar events. Officers also advised that the service was exploring ways to establish a better configuration of power supply for these events. Options around replacing diesel generators with greener options were considered with the support from Festival Republic.

i)     The Committee was assured that the events do not acquire the entire park for the festivals. The Richard Hope play space would remain open. The event only occupied around 30% of the park and the rest of the park would be available for use by the general public. Furthermore, local businesses would benefit from these events as there would be an influx of people coming into the borough.

j)     The Committee noted that all events were closely monitored. Issues and complaint relating to noise were supervised and controlled by the licensing configuration.

k)    The Committee sought clarification on works the Friends of the park were undertaking around their group’s priorities. The Committee was advised that they were working towards delivering phase one of the skate park project this year and the boundaries of the park were also being reviewed to improve entrances. In addition, toilets were seen as an issue within the park and as part of the Green Spaces Strategy, the service was working with young women and girls to focus on how to make the park more appealing and safer for them.

l)     The Committee highlighted some of the positive aspects of Finsbury Park. Events like the Wireless Festival had benefited the residents of Haringey and had attracted a wide range of people who could relish the opportunity to witness some of their favourite music live on stage.

RESOLVED

That the Committee to note the report.