new licence is rejected for next year's Hop Farm Festival

Plans for a new premises licence, to increase the capacity for next year's Hop Farm Festival held at the Hop Farm Country Park, Kent for five days from Thursday 2nd until Monday 6th July have been rejected by Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council.

The festival run by Vince Power, who founded Mean Fiddler (now Festival Republic) before selling it to Live Nation and MCD in 2005, was held as a one day festival this year with one stage and headlined by Neil Young. The day before the site was used by The Mighty Boosh Festival, also run by Power.

Next year the organisers plan to extend the event to five days, add more stages, increase the capacity to 53,000 people, and have 20,000 campers from Thursday 2nd July until Monday 6th July. However their plans to extend audience capacity have been scuppered at a packed planning meeting of the Licensing and Appeals Committee on the grounds there was a lack of information from the applicant, although the existing licence is not effected.

More than 100 residents of East Peckham expressed their worries regarding noise, disruption, environmental impact, and public safety. When asked who opposed the licensing application every member of the public at the meeting put their hand up.

The licence application was not as detailed as council planners required it to be and on those grounds it was thrown out. Giving evidence at the meeting, chief planner at the council Lindsay Pearson said, "The level of information at submission of the licence is not sufficient for us to be satisfied that as a matter of principle the proposal should go ahead."

It looks does look likely that the festival plans will be re-submitted with more content as the festival organisers argued that there were more detailed evacuation, traffic and flooding plans which would have been submitted once the licence was granted.

The existing premises application is still valid for events at Hop Farm and includes an alcohol licence for up to 29,999 people, allows live music, dance, and films to be shown from 7am until 2am with a late refreshments licence from 11pm until 3am. The current licence also has no restrictions on the length of time Hop Farm can hold the event for.

The site at Hop Farm is under new management and owner Peter Bull said it was likely they would be appealing the decision and both he and festival director Gill Tee said they hoped to work closely with the community to address their fears. The festival is also hoping to use new technology that is being researched and designed to provide better noise reduction. Vince Power the promoter of the event has stated that "We are confident that the licence to increase the capacity will be granted".

The Hop Farm Festival was a return to the UK festival scene last year by Power, who has come to the end of his non-compete clause in the UK which began when he sold his part of the Mean Fiddler Group. Power also holds a stake in the Spanish summer festival, Benicassim.

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