Thanks for coming in here Hamish, that's interesting stuff. I've sent an email to Unicorn magazine drawing their attention to this thread and to your post especially.

As I say in a post earlier, Unicorn are trying to get information together about this, arising out of hassles that have effected the Ely Folk Club. The website link I put in my earlier post doesn't seem to work - but here us the email address I've got for them: trpthomas@aol.com

I think it might be worth getting directly on to them yourself, because they might well have gathered some useful information by now.

My feeling is that these restrictions probably wouldn't stand up in a court at the end of the day, but the status quo quite suits too many people, and the people who are adversely effected aren't in a position to fight it through expensive court actions. And there's also a worry people have that clarifying the legal position might even make things worse – which, given the way the courts work sometimes, isn't so silly. (Though I think the HRA might have changed the likelihood of this happening a bit.)