For the purposes of objectivity, here is Hamish Birchall's report on this meeting.

The minutes of this meeting are still unavailable.

As promised, here is my report on my presentation at the Weymouth council meeting (below) on behalf of Roger Gall, the amateur folk musician whose session was prevented for some five months by PEL enforcement action in Portland. I have taken the opportunity to relate this to other developments, in Oxford and London.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________ Weymouth & Portland Borough Council Social/Community Committee meeting Tuesday 5 June 2001
Council officers attending included:
Melanie Earnshaw, Solicitor
Ian Locke, Director of Tourism and Leisure Services
Sue Allen, Licensing Manager
Tony Beeson, Environmental Health Services Manager
Geoff Pritchard, Senior Committee Administrator
Councillors:
12 members in social/community committee (plus two apologies)
(unadopted minutes are usually circulated a month later - I have requested a copy when available)

______________________________________________________________________________________________ The Committee was presented with a report dated 23 May 2001, jointly authored by Sue Allen (Licensing Manager) and Melanie Earnshaw (Borough Solicitor). The report asked: 'That members confirm that steps taken by Licensing Officers to encourage an application from the proprietor of the Cove House Inn, Portland, for a Licence permitting public entertainment on the premises were appropriate and justified'. My impression following this meeting, and the recent public consultation in Camden, is that local authority licensing managers and solicitors are withholding important information from councillors, and may even be knowingly misleading them. This is preventing a proper debate about the whole range of licensing issues. The motives would appear to be a mixture of misplaced professional amour-propre, empire-building and maintenance.

Roger Gall, the amateur folk musician whose informal jam session had been prevented for six months by council enforcement action, could not attend. He asked me to take his place.

In spite of the fact that my written invitation from WPBC carried the heading 'Democratic Services' I was allowed only 4 minutes to speak. Both WPBC's formal invitation and a copy of the internal report (copy available) on the enforcement action reached me only the day before the meeting. On the day itself they gave the 12 attending councillors five minutes to read two letters (five sides of A4) that I had sent in February and March to Melanie Earnshaw arguing that councils should relax enforcement against certain types of live music. The letters point out that local authorities have complete discretion in the PEL fees they set, some discretion in the interpretation of the law that applies, and adequate powers under separate legislation to address most of the problems PELs supposedly deal with.

I also argued that certain strict enforcement may be unlawful under the Human Rights because it prevents the legitimate exercise of freedom of expression where there are no noise or safety issues. At the meeting I argued against the Committee accepting the report, jointly signed by Melanie Earnshaw and Licensing Manager Sue Allen, which called for retrospective endorsement of the enforcement action that had prevented Mr Gall's session. The report was drafted in a way that led councillors away from an informed debate about the underlying issues. The anomalous exemptions to PELs were not mentioned at all (Crown land, recorded sound, satellite tv etc), case law in support of the council position was alluded to but not cited, case law that might be in the musicians favour was omitted, the duplication of safety legislation and PELs was not discussed.

By WPBC's own admission, there were no noise complaints resulting from Mr Gall's music-making. More significantly there were no safety concerns either. The public entertainment licence was granted to the pub last month without any safety conditions attached. There were no objections to the PEL from either the police or fire service.

There had been one or two noise complaints in previous years occasioned by an outside charity event that the publican, Mr Flynn (The Cove Inn, Portland) organises himself on one day in the year. This was referred to at the meeting as 'a history of noise problems at The Cove'. When The Cove's PEL application was made public, four objections on the grounds of potential for noise disturbance were made. These were due to be considered at a hearing, but Ms Allen persuaded the complainants to withdraw just 24 hours prior to the hearing taking place. Thus the PEL was granted.

The new PEL actually increases the public safety risk because it insists that members of the public attending the next charity event must come inside after 6pm. The pub's capacity limit of 95 was unchanged since being set by the fire service some years ago. Mr Flynn claims that the greatest contribution to the good cause comes late in the evening when people often hand over the change left in their pockets. If the event now has to come indoors after 6pm, the large numbers attending outdoors will either leave or pack into the pub making it dangerous. Either way the good cause loses out. The Cove's charity fetes have been reported favourably in the local press. They raised about £700-800 on each occasion. Mr Flynn showed me the press cuttings.

In my view, in preventing Mr Gall's music-making, WPBC was acting unlawfully under s 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998. Because there were no noise or safety concerns, the enforcement was disproportionate and incompatible with Mr Gall and participating members of the public exercising their right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention.

In spite of my making this point, and even though two or three councillors accepted that s 182 as it stands is an ass, I am afraid that the Committee voted overwhelmingly to support the licensing enforcement. They did vote to add a qualifying statement to the effect that some form of public consultation on the issue may be useful at a future date. One councillor asked if there was any mechanism for such a consultation, apparently not knowing about the Local Cultural Strategy, a Department of Culture initiative which all local authorities must complete by 2002. The LCS requires local authorities to undertake extensive public consultation, and specifically mentions a need for a review of licensing arrangements in small venues. I raised this point, but the meeting seemed to move swiftly to other agenda items. I left shortly afterwards, unsure of the final wording of the amendment.

The fact is that the councillors, with one or two exceptions, didn't really understand the issue. In spite of the fact that Weymouth police officers have expressed concerns about the council's inconsistent enforcement of PEL conditions, and that public disorder and disturbance will - like most areas of the country - be associated with nightclubs and late-opening bars that hold PELs, councillors remain apparently convinced of PELs' efficacy in controlling noise and alcohol-related crime and disorder. I don't think it is going too far to say that the officers of the council tended to reinforce these perceptions, either by failing to correct councillors' mistaken assumptions (many of the questions councillors asked revealed a profound ignorance about how the law actually works), or by stating that the law is clear when it is not. The significance of the HRA and the European Convention was disregarded by councillors - the underlying assumption being, I suspect, that live music cannot be that important, particularly when it is amateur and taking place in a pub.

Tony Beeson, Weymouth's Environmental Health Services manager, admitted to me outside the meeting afterwards that safety legislation was quite up to the task of ensuring public safety for this sort of music-making at The Cove, irrespective of whether a PEL applied. But he did not mention this at the meeting. He also suggested that if Weymouth, which he claimed was a small under-resourced authority, were to be 'made an example of' by musicians bringing a case alleging a breach of their rights under the HRA, then other local authorities would join Weymouth to fight it. It would seem they are taking the possibility of a challenge quite seriously.

Oxford's internal report (copy available) on its own enforcement action against a very similar folk session is misleading in broadly the same way as Weymouth's. I have written to Oxford's legal director setting out my reservations about the report. No reply so far.