Objectors lose battle over village events

EVENTS in a field adjoining the Springhead Pub at Sutton Poyntz will continue with the granting of a separate licence to the Blue Welly company.

Some residents feared that having two licences in the area could mean extra noise and disturbance and objected to the new Premises Licence application for the field at a Dorchester hearing.

But the man behind the venture, Stephen Bown from Blue Welly Events, repeatedly said that no extra activities were planned and having a bar and events further away from the pub was likely to be an advantage for residents.

In granting the new licence Dorset Council’s licensing committee chairman Cllr Derek Beer, stressed that good communications with neighbours would be key to the smooth running of activities in the field.

Residents had told the hearing of late night noise, road range incidents, near-misses in the narrow village streets and litter as a result of some of the events. Some said they were trapped in their homes for six hours on days of big events, such as the Dog, cider and sausage festival and Ska event, held earlier this month.

The new licence will allow music and the sale of drinks from 10am until 11pm in the field from March until the end of September, with those attending events expected to leave by midnight.

In addition to routine conditions about supervision, minimum pricing and age checks signs will be have to put up for relevant events requesting customers to respect neighbours and leave quietly with professional sound engineers on site for music events to control the audio levels.

All events with more than 300 people will need to be ticket-only with neighbouring residents warned at least two weeks in advance if a larger event is to be held with a phone contact number provided to deal with any complaints. The relevant authorities, including the Police, will need to be told three months in advance when events with more than1,000 people are to be held.

The licensing panel have limited the maximum number of events to 30 per year between March 1st and September 30th to include no more than four ticketed events, one to be held on the August bank holiday weekend.

Mr Bown said the separate licence would give him more control of events, allow wedding celebrations to be held on any day of the week and to have a bar in the field.

He told the hearing that he would like to be able to have around twelve weddings, three or four ticketed events and about five other non-ticketed events each year.