I sent this to the Dorset Evening Echo today. I wonder if it will be published? If you wish to help....letters@dorsetecho.co.uk

Open letter to the voters of Weymouth and Portland.
Many of the current Weymouth and Portland Borough Councillors will be up for re-election in May

Many of the councillors will be unaware that their council has funded and organised the 2nd Weymouth Folk Festival, the main events of this take place in the council owned Pavilion Theatre, and this is also due to take place in May.

Many will be unaware of their local policy, which threatens the success of this Weymouth folk festival.

Many will be unaware that many potential outside visitors to this festival have written to the council, and The Dorset Evening Echo, stating that they will not be visiting the borough or attending the event, until the council changes its current policy.

Many will be unaware that the policy they support and which they maintain to be the best policy for this borough is the following: -
That any pub customer making any form of unpaid music for his or her own pleasure will be considered as a 'performer' in a public entertainment. And if there are more than two customers, making music, this will be considered to have made these premises automatically unsafe without the premises paying a fee to the council for an additional Public Entertainment Licence. Licensees can face a £20,000 fine or six months in prison and have been threatened with this, should this activity proceed without the additional licence.

Many will be unaware that there is no case law support for this policy, when it is used against unpaid customers making music for their own enjoyment.

Many will be unaware that the council have recently been presented with a QC's opinion via Jim Knight MP, that places very serious doubts that this council's policy is compatible with Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.   

Many councillors will be unaware that under Section 6 of the Human Rights Act, is it unlawful for a council to act in way that is incompatible with a European Convention right.

Perhaps the electors would like to ask their own councillor if they are aware of the above and intend to support this policy, when a proposal to change it, is shortly to be placed before them? And if they still intend to support it, why they consider it to be the best policy for this borough?