Festival organisers seek 75-day park use

The company behind All Points East and LIDO festivals has applied for permission to use an east London park for up to 75 days a year.

AEG Presents wants Tower Hamlets Council to grant planning permission for its festivals at Victoria Park for the next six years.

Plans submitted to the council say the proposal includes the period required to "construct and deconstruct the festival site" and the 75 days will not be consecutive "to allow for Victoria Park to return to full public use".

Some local residents have raised concerns about the amount of the park that will be cordoned off from public use over the summer.

AEG firm has run All Points East in Victoria Park annually since 2018, and launched LIDO festival there last year.

It did not apply for planning permission in previous years as festival organisers and councils did not believe it was needed.

Under planning law, temporary uses of land lasting up to 28 days do not need planning permission.

But after a legal challenge to festivals held at Brockwell Park in Lambeth, the High Court ruled last year that this had to include days spent setting up and taking down festival sites.

AEG said it intended to occupy sites in the park for up to 66 days a year.

But it wanted planning permission for 75 days to allow for "important flexibility, particularly with regards to delays due to inclement weather".

A planning statement submitted with its application says the number of days it wants permission for is not an increase on its use of the land in previous years.

The planning statement says: "It is important to note that this planning application proposal does not constitute an intensification of the festival proposal.

"AEG are not looking to materially change the events in terms of the scale/capacity, quantum and nature of these events from how they have operated in Victoria Park in previous years."

Jennifer Keiza, who lives near the park, said she was "deeply disappointed" by the scale of the planning application.

"I'm not objecting to the festival, it's more about the length of time that they're taking over the park," she said.

Gaz Kllokoqi, owner of the People's Park Tavern and a nearby resident, said: "The problem here is not the music, the festivals, people coming to visit our beautiful park.

"The problem is cordoning it off, closing it off for such a long period of time over summer."

Mary Pimm, chair of the Victoria Park Community Association, said it would be "bad for everybody" if half the park was unusable throughout the summer.

This year, AEG plans to hold All Points East over six days, on the weekends of 21-23 and 28-30 August. It says LIDO festival will take place for one day on 31 August.

AEG also wants to host a four-day midweek community festival in between the two weekends.

Setup for the festivals would begin on 7 August, and take-down is planned to be completed by 9 September.

As in previous years, All Points East would occupy the majority of Victoria Park's large fields in the south and east of the site.

AEG says that in following years it hopes to run LIDO festival as a multi-day event, as it did last year.

LIDO would use the park for 30 days, and All Points East would use it for 33 days.

AEG said there would be a "break" of at least 28 days in between the two festivals in which the park would be returned to public use.

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