Thought you may be interested in the attached e-mail correspondence (I don't think it's been posted elsewhere has it?):

Dear Mr Tiffney,

I was interested to read a couple of remarks attributed to you, reportedly made during a recent meetiing on the reform of entertainment licensing. The gist of the comments were that

there is no tradition of folk music in pubs in England and Wales.

and that

the low take-up of PELs in England and Wales was simply a reflection of low public demand for live music.

I would be interested to know the context in which these comments were made, and the sources of research on which they were based.

Yours sincerely,

Trevor Hedges

REPLY: Please see attached response to various correspondents on this issue. JohnT

Dear Mr Gall

I refer to your recent letter which was prompted by an email circulated by Hamish Birchall. I take strong exception to being quoted out of context during the course of a 60 minute informal meeting between Louise Venn of the Arts Council (who was accompanied by Hamish) and myself to discuss the responses of our two organisations to the proposed reform of the liquor and entertainment licensing regime.

I spent 42 years as a local authority officer, 20 years as a chief officer responsible for environmental health and the last 7 years with responsibility for cultural services when I introduced an annual Arts Festival, a £3.5m refurbishment of a major entertainment complex as well as being a non executive director of a regional theatre. Incidentally, I was a classmate (in the 1950s) of Martin Carthy, one of our leading folk musicians. I have never claimed to be an expert on PE licensing and am not employed by the LGA as such – I only quoted my home town for the past 27 years as not having a history of folk music in local pubs. I did however say I enjoyed visiting Ireland and USA, Australia and Europe where I have spent time in a variety of venues listening to music.

Last week's Morning Advertiser carried a front page article quoting from an interview with me about the licensing reforms "I'm all for sensible administration of licensing, not over-zealous enforcement nor with extortionate fees… we are looking at the tourism and regeneration opportunities".

What the LGA cannot condone is the use of any premises for public entertainment which puts the public and the entertainers at risk to their health and safety – this is the rationale of PE licensing. Clearly there are some antiquated laws that need to be repealed.

I trust this clarifies my approach (and that of the LGA) which is entirely positive towards the proposed reforms.

Yours sincerely

John Tiffney

Well I'm glad that's all nice and clear then!