Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Friends of Finsbury Park Appeal against Wireless set for 2nd November
The Islington Gazette is reporting today:
http://www.islingtongazette.co.uk/news/environment/friends-of-finsb...
Friends of Finsbury Park campaigners could restrict private events in parks across London
Legal action by campaigners trying to stop Wireless Festival in Finsbury Park could end up restricting events across the whole of London.
The Friends of Finsbury Park failed with a bid to ban the event last year after taking Haringey Council to a judicial review on grounds the park was being overused for private functions.
But the group did win an appeal to challenge Mr Justice Supperstone’s decision, which will take place at the Court of Appeal on November 2.
If they win the appeal, the ruling will not ban commercial events, but it will restrict the number of days they go on for and the size – and will apply to every council in the capital.
“This is not just about protecting Finsbury Park and safeguarding it for future generations,” said FOFP campaigner Tom Palin. “It will decide whether parks will be protected for local communities against commercial over-exploitation, or given away indefinitely for local authorities to hire out to whoever they want, for however long, regardless of its condition or the customer.”
Tags for Forum Posts: finsbury park, finsbury park events, nitrous oxide
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by 0l7ft44vlytse on
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Why don't they just change the respective acts?
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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I do,wonder if, in light of this, Haringey will start looking at alternative funding models?
Two that I know of have been used. Putney and Wimbledon Commons get additional monies by raising an extra precept (an extra council tax charge) on households living within three quarters of a mile of the commons or within certain old parish boundaries. Others have taken a more slash and burn approach by selling or leasing off parts of parks to developers and in return for planning consent for commercial and residential development, using a section106 agreement to get funds for the management of the remainder of the park.
The precept model is a tricky one because in return for the money the local authority has to set up a kind of management committee and hold formal elections which are open to everyone who pays the precept. That means that the money from the precept gets eaten into to pay for things like elections, mailings to householders and so one.
The sell off approach is simpler and has the potential to reap considerable income.
If Haringey feel boxed into a corner by a ruling on this appeal they have two alternatives. Find the money for the maintenance of its parks elsewhere (and the income for Finsbury Park events is ring fenced to all parks in the borough, not just FP) or simply to spend less on management and maintenance. One of the biggest spends is on wages for people physically there doing things like opening, closing, litter picking, planting and patroliing..
Setting up an alternative funding model can't be done overnight and I wonder if the I initial reaction will be to cut staff, so restricting opening hours and maintenance?
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I am not part of FoFP so just heard about this here. I am really glad I don't live too near the park as although the bass is omnipresent on festival days, I can go out or shut my windows. It is a bit difficult to enjoy my garden on those days but not impossible. However for the general park users a lot of the park is used up and it is left in a mess afterwards. A lot of families use the park if they have no gardens and these events happening in the middle of the summer is really hard. There is open drug dealing going on, the park and streets around are littered with bottles and used nitrous oxide canisters and people who live nearby have had human excrement in their gardens etc. Thats why I am glad to be a bit away. The smaller concerts just don't cause this problem but I have just seen a raft of applications sent via SGRA and 1 has 45,000 and the other 50,000 audience. It feels to me there should be a way to limit concert numbers to 20,000 max as there are clearly some promotors who are happy with this number given other applications are 12,000. The park does need protection and I think the local residents could do with a break. Having door knocked the area at recent elections, there is huge diversity around the park and it would be interesting to know the impact on those residents as some are unlikely to be on here or SGRA.
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I live on The Ladder and the noise kind of ricochets up the New River. For those living right by the park it must be difficult to live with. However, I think that the FoFP appeal, if successful, will prevent more creative solutions being looked at. For instance I've been to the Affordable Art Fair at Battersea park which I imagine is a good income generator for Wandsworth.
A successful appeal would limit the number of days the park was available to hire out for any event. In an ideal world I would rather see a larger number of low impact events than a smaller number of big crowd ones. The appeal seeks to restrict both the number and size of events so will put Haringey (and all other authorities who come under the acts mentioned by Tris) in a position where income will lag way behind the loss of money from their budgets to manage parks.
It isn't leaving any room for better solutions and in the cash strapped world be live in at the moment and can't see how the circle can be squared.
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When you think about it Billy, FP has an incredible potential to be a venue for smaller scale events that could really get some extra cash into parks and rec in Haringey.
Which other large park has a two tube lines, national and local rail services and countless bus routes almost at the entrance gates?
A marketing team could attract things like a winter ice rink, trade shows and so on. If those already running events like this are reliant on their customers being willing to schlep up to Alexandra Palace like they do now, somewhere as convenient as Finsbury Park would be really attractive.
Events like this would probably have a much smaller physical footprint in the park and less of an impact in terms of noise, anti social behaviour and so on.
But with the reduction in the number of days being mooted in the appeal all that will be left are a small number of fairly large events, so really just a continuation of Wireless and so on.
A dialogue with Haringey about something along these lines would have been far more productive than the current stance of the Friends group
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Permalink Reply by Konrad B on
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See my post - a few minutes ago
Finsbury Park Music Events - Summer 2018
For details of the six event applications for next summer.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Fortunately you too have a surname worthy of Lording it over us and passing your judgements ;)
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Permalink Reply by Malc B on
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All will be revealed tomorrow afternoon.... judgment is due to be delivered at 2pm.
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Please do let us know the outcome if you're able...thanks
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Below is from The Friends of Finsbury Park website. What I find rather disturbing is that they now seem to want to have some kind of judgement that means that monies raised from Finsbury Park events can ONLY be spent on Finsbury Park, not for general improvements to parks in the borough.
The Court of Appeal gave judgment on Thursday 16 November 2017 at 2 p.m. Although the Court of Appeal refused the Friends’ appeal, the judgment is extremely important in that it acknowledges that public parks are held by local authorities on trust for the purpose of public enjoyment and the public are its beneficial owners; as such the public have a statutory right to use the land for recreational purposes and the local authority owner must allow the public free and unrestricted use of it.
Although the Court found that s.145 of the Local Government Act 1972 is not limited by any other statutory provision and gives the local authority the power to exclude the public from public parks notwithstanding the public’s rights, that power must be exercised lawfully and not perversely or to frustrate the purpose of the trust (i.e. the public’s right to use the land for recreational purposes). Crucially, the Court of Appeal raises therefore the prospect that where a local authority uses s.145 to exclude the public from a park, that decision can be challenged by residents asserting that the closure of a park is unlawful because it interferes too much with the public’s right to use the park for recreation.
Also, as the court has found that the Council holds Finsbury Park on trust for the public, this means that any monies rasied by the Council from the hire of Finsbury Park must be used only for the purpose of Finsbury Park. The Friends will also be asking Haringey Council to account for all the monies they have raised by the hire of Finsbury Park as they are only allowed to spend the monies on Finsbury itself. The friends are concerned that in fact the Council has been using the monies for it’s general parks budget.
The Friends of Finsbury Park maintain however that a local authority’s power to exclude the public from a park is limited by the restrictions on space and time as set out in the Public Health Amendment Act 1890, section 44 (closure of a park for no more than 12 days in a year or 6 consecutive days on any one occasion) and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government Provisional Order Confirmation (Greater London Parks and Open Spaces) Act 1967, Article 7 (max of 1/10 of park to be closed).
The Friends have therefore applied for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court and will continue to raise funds to be able to do this including for their potential exposure to the other sides’ costs, the court fees and copying charges; the Friends’ legal team continues to act on a conditional fee (no win no fee) basis.
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I've read the only thing that matters, the judgment. It's refreshing to read from a judge rather than a post on the internet.
The FOFP had their arses handed to them and to say otherwise is specious. What the case was largely about was combing through a number of laws on topic and interpreting them in a non-conflicting manner. Also at issue was specific application of a certain statutory instrument to London boroughs (councils).
The court held that as a general proposition the park is held in trust for the public. But that a different law (the s.145 mentioned) clearly allows for an event like Wireless on the terms we have all seen.
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FOFP: Crucially, the Court of Appeal raises therefore the prospect that where a local authority uses s.145 to exclude the public from a park, that decision can be challenged by residents asserting that the closure of a park is unlawful because it interferes too much with the public’s right to use the park for recreation.
No. The Court implied that some way out there abstract sense, the Council could use it's s. 145 power unlawfully, but that is a case by case matter.
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The Court: "This appeal concerns the issue of whether, as a matter of jurisdiction, the Council had power under section 145 to hire out part of the Park for the purposes of the Wireless Festival; or whether, as a matter of jurisdiction, they were limited to considering the application for hire only under section 44 of the 1890 Act or article 7 of the 1967 Act. In respect of that issue, it seems to me that that the statutory trust provisions of section 10 of the 1906 Act are of limited value, because section 145 clearly gives local authorities the power to enclose parts of a park that is subject to that trust: the issue is whether it applies to London, and hence the Park. [The court found s.145 applies to London--emphasis added].
The above is the language of the law, not someone on the internet looking to raise money by an emotional appeal. You can see the FOFP's assertion about trusts is bogus.
What was kind of funny to me is there is a common law rule that the court only considers issue(s) properly put before it. These FOFP didn't even raise the right legal question and the court commented on that anyway, although it did not have to:
The Court: "There is no challenge to the Council’s exercise of the section 145 power in this case, if it had such a power; and, consequently, no evidence has been lodged by the Council in respect of it. Given the consultation and other processes that went into the Council’s policy on events in the park generally, and its decision to grant Festival Republic a premises licence and Live Nation a hiring of part of the Park for the festival, it may be that such a challenge would have been difficult to mount or even untenable; but, as no such challenge has been made, it would be inappropriate to say anything further about it.
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I should mention that the decision was unanimous (3 judges) and that the lower court (High Court) judge's legal conclusions were wholly affirmed. It is likely if the Supreme Court hears the case the outcome will not change.
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Are you really, really saying that Cliver Carter doesn't get very far in court? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, although the Firoka affair does predate Twitter.
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