Shambles, if you're going to post new threads about this, please can you provide information? Your thread-starter is completely devoid of anything other than you shouting and swearing.

The information on the linked site took some finding too. After some digging, the appropriate information is:-

Apparently Sue, licencee of the Blue Bell, was visited by the Local Authority at the end of last year and told of works that had to be carried out to allow the acoustic sessions to continue - there being more than two people "performing" in the course of one evening. I understand that she agreed to carry out works and was given a provisional PEL to June. The folks in the session raised £200 odd to help her a little towards the works. Due to illness or whatever, the works were not completed nor a renewed PEL applied for.

When the session restarted in September after the summer break, it was visited and closed down.

The situation now is that Sue has to be interviewed by the local authority and has been warned that she may be prosecuted.

So in full knowledge, this landlady allowed the session to carry on, didn't do the work she'd said she was going to, didn't attempt to get another PEL, and didn't even inform the session musicians of what they'd have to do to ensure they kept legal in the absence of these things being done? Does that not sound just a little bit stupid? I certainly have sympathy for her as someone being unfairly "got at" by petty local government officials, but she really hasn't helped herself (as a similar example, someone done for speeding on a road where the speed limit is way below the safe speed is still guilty, even though the speed limit is obviously incorrect). There's no sign that she's doing this as a stand against PELs as a matter of conscience - to be honest, it comes across that she's got herself in this fix through her own carelessness. If this isn't the case, please let us know. Again, this is where you should be providing us with information instead of just lots of all-caps swearing.

I certainly don't believe the *current* PEL system is a good thing - this case demonstrates clearly that "two-in-a-bar" doesn't work. The new PEL system is in progress and it's clearly not yet right, but given the reaction from the House of Lords, it should be getting there. I'm not going to go into the EDM now, but parts of that are misleading, and other parts are utterly incorrect. It would be wrong of me to call the person who raised the EDM a liar, but they have certainly phrased it with the deliberate intention to mislead.

Graham.