Thanks Hamish for confirming the case law cannot be taken as definitive. Andrew Smith MP, passed to me a letter from Isobel Garner, the directory of legal and community affairs for the council which cited the 1793 Clarke vs Serle case. I wrote to her before the meeting explaining why it could not be used in that way. I received no reply.

The meeting of the Health and Environment Committee received a report which stated baldly that there was case law to count members of the public as performers.

We know this is factually incorrect and Dr Manchester's confirmation is useful. The bottom line is that the councillors, knowing the relevant information, chose TO DO NOTHING.

Every member of the committee was circulated with information about the European legislation, with the information about case law, with information about how sessions work, with information about why it is so important to folk music. They were all fully informed about what they were entitled to decide upon.

The report from the officers made the points after quoting the legislation: (1) Milton Keynes had reversed their policy because it had become problematic controlling the numbers of people involved. (2) That they had phoned around other neighbouring authorities who all insisted on PELs. (3) That they could not make exceptions for one kind of music only. (4) That they had no proactive policy of checking up on folk music in pubs. (5) That they regarded "impromptu" folk sessions as not falling within the ambit of the PEL regime. (6) That the additional conditions imposed on pubs in order to get a licence is usually about having illuminated lights at the exits (and the power supply for them... )

In this way, they IGNORED the arguments put forward, and decided to DO NOTHING rather than consider changing their present policy. In addition, they have decided to maintain the same kind of prejudiced policy as neighbouring authorities only because the neighbours do it. They were given misleading advice by the officers about what they can decide upon and what they are entitled to do and given the impression that they cannot go against case law from 1793 - as far as I can tell, they were not informed that it dated from 1793 by the officers. Despite me telling him, the chairman of the committee seemed surprised when I reminded him about it on the phone.

Point 5 seems like a minor concession. I think they realise that they would have little chance of convicting anyone of this sort of offence but the threats can still put off any landlords/managers who would otherwise support the music.

People locally are undecided about the next step. The manager of the Old Ale House has now left and it may be that the session will simply move somewhere else until the problem arises again. Although we had lots of support for the petition, no-one seems at all keen to put pen to paper or make a phone call. Lots of verbal support, but no action. Given that situation I'm not sure what the next move is.

I'll be contacting the councillors again once I've received the copies of the reports from the chair of the committee - he promised to send them to me - haven't arrived yet.

There's some local concern that if we raise it in the press, sessions might be targetted in reaction. Personally I don't like hiding under threat! Maybe Mark Thomas C4 ought to have a poke at it!

One thing is certain. Until we force local authorities to take this issue seriously, there will continue to be threat to sessions. Incidentally, the fact that PELs wil disappear under the new legislation doesn't mean that councils will stop imposing silly conditions. The lazy ones will still try to apply standard conditions. When pubs apply for a premises licence, they will have to submit plans for what entertainments they want to have and the local panel will then determine conditions. There is no guarantee that the new legislation will not have similar restrictive conditions - it's just that it won't be legislative so we could challenge them locally.

All the best to everyone trying to get this stupid situation improved.