Forum topic: A festival too far?

Over three days in October up to 8000 people from all over London are due to be flocking to Palmers Green, attracted by an opportunity to "loosen up their lederhosen" and enjoy three days of bratwurst, oompah bands and axe throwing, all washed down with German beer served by dirndl-clad waitresses.

The occasion? An “authentic German beer festival” held on the sports field in Broomfield Park and organised by Hertfordshire-based Barbican Events Ltd (a company set up only last year and with no apparent connection with the celebrated arts centre in the City of London).

Well, you might ask, what’s wrong with that? Broomfield Park is by now well established as a venue for all sorts of events and to date there have been few if any problems.

But how well does the “London Oktoberfest” fit into the established pattern of events in Broomfield Park? Will it bring disruption and a threat to public order to the centre of Palmers Green? And what does it tell us about Enfield Council’s commitment to a “partnership approach” to events in the park, as promised after 2018’s “4 Not 24” campaign, that they gave the green light to this event more than three months ago without consulting the local community?

2000 at a sitting

The London Oktoberfest is due to be held between 21^st and 23^rd October. Each of the four sessions held over the three days will welcome a maximum of 2000 revellers, seated at long tables in a huge tent (twice the size of the one used by Zippos's circus) pitched on the sports field at the north east corner of the park.

For each session the organisers predict that 800 people will arrive by train, 400 will be dropped off by taxi or car, 200 will come by tube (Arnos Grove or Bounds Green) and 100 will use buses.

Very different from the events that we’re used to

Only 400 attendees at each session – one in five - are expected to live near enough to the park to come on foot. That alone makes the Oktoberfest very different from the locally focussed not-for-profit festivals and other events in that we’re used to, which have done so much to enrich our cultural life and bring the local community together.

This month’s Palmers Green Food Festival, just to take one example, had the dual objective of promoting excellent local food producers while raising money and visibility for Cooking Champions, a not-for-profit dedicated to teaching proper cooking skills and helping tackle the food poverty crisis.

What is there to worry about?

However, there’s no law that states that all events have to be aimed at some good cause, and this is one way for the council to make up for the drastic cutbacks in funding from central government over the last decade or so.

And isn’t this just a bit of fun to brighten up what haven’t been the most enjoyable couple of years? The council’s Safety Advisory Group are satisfied that Barbican Events have “suitable and sufficient measures in place to deliver a safe event”. So what is there to worry about?

However, Friends of Broomfield Park (FoBP), the organisers of most events held in the park in recent years, beg to differ.

FoBP secretary David Williamson says that the Friends will be objecting to the licence application for the event, citing a number of serious concerns, including likely problems with dispersal of attendees at closing time:

“Over the past couple of years FoBP have run music events with audiences of up to 400 people and have found that the difficulties we face are in direct proportion to the amount of alcohol consumed. After the shows people have spilled out onto Aldermans Hill. Even using professional security and traffic management staff we've found that it takes up to 45 minutes to clear road and pavement congestion.

“This much larger event will magnify this problem four or five times, even without considering the effects of alcohol on many of the attendees. And people making for the trains - not very frequent even when they're not cancelled - will overwhelm the capacity of the narrow pavement outside the station."

A potential threat to FoBP’s popular events?

The Friends also worry that if any problems occur this could affect their ability to continue running their popular events in the park. Their not-for-profit events raise funds to improve the park and benefit our local community. By contrast, the Oktoberfest, with a huge number of attendees from across London and a focus on drinking, is entirely profit-driven and very probably will lead to complaints from neighbours about noise and other anti-social behaviour:

“Having built up community support for FoBP events and the existing programme of fairgrounds and circus, we don't want to see this lost because of one ill judged experiment.”

In their submission the Friends will point out that experience with similar events in other places does not augur well. After problems with Oktoberfests, both Colchester and Glasgow refused applications for the event to return the following year. A Police Scotland report referred to disorderly and aggressive festivalgoers who “pose a threat to pedestrians and a significant burden on the surrounding streets”.

A juggernaught superspreader event?

Also concerned about the event is local resident Steve Quinn, who in a Facebook post warns of another risk - spreading Covid-19 - and comments that this "authentic German" event might not go down so well in Germany itself:

Campaign to stop this Horror show, a juggernaut tent-bound festival, from taking place on an annual basis. Even the Germans would be horrified by this event, still officially bound to wear face masks on all public transport due to a massive increase of Covid outbreaks. What on earth are Enfield Council doing to the community of Palmers Green and Enfield borough?

What about consultation?

No doubt that there will be mixed views about Oktoberfest - some will hate the idea, others love it. But I'm sure that both sides of that argument will agree that the council should be consulting about holding a big event in our local park. And consultation isn't just a question of for or against. It's an opportunity to improve proposals, because local people will think of things that didn't occur to council officers who live somewhere else.

Back in 2018 the council agreed that a funfair could be held in Broomfield Park over a period of 24 days, including some evening sessions. They didn't consult about this, but when people living close to the park heard about it, they set up a campaign called 4 Not 24 and kicked up such a fuss that in the end the council and the funfair proprietor agreed that the fair should be on for only four days. The 4 Not 24 organisers and Friends of Broomfield Park held meetings with the council and reached agreement on a future "partnership approach" to events in the park, starting with informal discussions well in advance of an event. This is obviously all the more important when the event in question is on a different scale and of a different type than previously held in Broomfield Park.

So what became of the partnership approach? While it appears that the council gave the green light to Barbican Events back in April, it’s only recently that local people have learnt about the Oktoberfest. A few residents have seen a letter from the council’s head of parks dated 12th July informing them that Barbican Events would be applying for a full premises licence for regulated entertainment and for the sale of alcohol. Those who've tried to submit objections have been informed that they can't do so yet, as the licence application has not yet been formally submitted. Once the application has been submitted, residents will be able to object to the granting of a licence, but only on certain narrow grounds specified by the Licensing Act 2003 - which is as it shouldl be, because the act is designed to deal with specific issues that can arise when certain types of entertainment and the sale of alcohol are involved.

But these licensing questions are only one aspect of holding a big event in our local park which has the potential to lead to congestion on roads, pavements, buses and our pathetically infrequent train service. Does it not occur to the council that the people who live and work in Palmers Green might have views or suggestions that should be considered?