This recently posted on uk.music.folk.

Folks the article about the closure of Ely Folk Club and its 3 year
fight against the local council is here.

http://www.objmedia.demon.co.uk/letters/ElyFolkClub.html

If you want to copy it and add it your archive, feel free to do so.

Alternatively you can read it here. This takes the form of a cutting
from a local newspaper at the time, followed by my own comments on what remains of the folk club (which kind of rose from the grave about 9 months after Ruth had had enough).

Club forced to move as councillors play on

Thats all folks!

Council officials have folk musicians out of an Ely pub for playing
without a license but have let the show go on for two councillors just four miles up the road.

Double standards left Ely Folk Club out in the cold, while the Red Rose - run by two Labour councillors - played on at pubs in Sutton and Mepal.

They could be prosecuted for entertaining in a public place without a
license but, despite their advertising throughout the area, no action
has been taken by East Cambridgeshire District Council.

At the same time, Ely Folk Club has been driven out of the city, vowing never to return, after being thrown out of the Cutter Inn. They were told to leave just two days before visiting musicians were due to play and had to make last minute bookings at the Ely Maltings.

But the Red Rose - whose members include Labour councillors Graham
Steward and Dil Owen is still playing at the unlicensed Three Pickerels in Mepal and the Chequers in Sutton. They do not operate a members only policy and entertain drinkers at the pubs' bars.

Ely Folk Club entertainments officer Ruth Bramley said: "Ely has lost
its folk club. This is our sixth move in three years. We are being
chased around Ely because venues are not suitable or owners lose their licenses. We saw almost seven and a half years work go down the drain in two days. Luckily the Maltings stepped in and bent over backwards to help us. We have had enough of it. This is a grey area in the law which needs clarifying."

The 200 strong club claims it was told it could operate within the law if it was run on a members-only basis in a private room at the back of a pub not open to the public. But last week a temporary manager at the Cutter Inn told them to leave after a visit from a council officer who warned him that the pub did not have an entertainments license. For the last five months members had to met each Wednesday night to listen to visiting bands including big names, among them Show of Hands, who filled the Albert Hall at a recent concert.

Now it has moved to the Shoulder of Mutton in Witchford, which has an
entertainments license, but warned that if forced to move on, the club will shut.

Ely has lost up to 40 entertainment venues in recent years because
owners struggle to meet the licensing laws or keep trade bouyant. Red
Rose founder guitarist Graham Steward and Cllr Owen who plays the
Bodhran Irish drum, meet fortnightly at both pubs and have been inviting drinkers to join in with an old fashioned sing-a-long for the last two years.

Cllr Steward said: "This law is very clumsy. I think the Ely Folk Club contributed a lot to the life in Ely. There are lots of local groups who play just for the love of it and if there is going to be a purge the cultural life of Cambridgeshire will be the worse for it. We asked publicans to let us play for their worst night of trade and we bring in up to 30 people on an evening when they would have just a handful in the bar. It helps the pubs and the community and is good fun. But no publican could afford to pay £150 a year for a license for just 10 evenings entertainment a year. If this question were raised in Ireland they would be a revolution."

Cllr Owen said: "The council is taking a heavy handed approach with
regards to regulations without looking at each event on its merits as a result of the bureaucratic society we live in, which does not allow for flexibility. We ought to find a smoother way of executing the
regulations.
This is bureaucratic nonsense."

Both he and Cllr Steward said they would raise the issue as a matter of urgency within council committees.

ADeC trustee and Ely Forum member Terry Overall organises musical events all over the district. He said: "I am extremely annoyed about this. I think the council should have given the club some breathing space. There are a lot of new venues attempting to open up and I hope the licensing authorities will be lenient with them."

East Cambridgeshire District Council's environmental services manager
Steve Clements said: "Now that the Standard has brought our
attention that the Red Rose folk club is allegedly putting on musical
events in a public house which does not have an entertainments license we will be looking into the matter. The council is certainly not a kill-joy, but quite the opposite. The law says that if you are providing public music or dancing in licensed premises and there are more than two entertainers you need a license. You are breaking the law and can be prosecuted for operating without an entertainments license."

He added that Ely Folk Club was given advice by the council on how to
operate as a members only club but failed to apply for the necessary
magistrates' license. But members claim they were not told they needed a magistrates' license, and when they found out they were not given time to apply. Mrs Bramley added: "Its too late now. The council has burnt its bridges. They have lost it and we won't return to Ely. We were bringing in good audiences but we need to stand firm.

Postscript

I live in Sutton, and know both the councillors, Ruth and Terry
mentioned in this story. The councillors completely oppose the local
authorities activities relating to music and inform me that this is
driven (unbeleivably enough) by the Liberal Democrat dominated local
council.

As to the magistrates' license: We were most certainly not informed that we needed one.

At one public meeting several people voiced the opinion that the council had a vendetta against the folk club (I cannot recall the exact form of words, this was several years ago).

I was so angry at the closure of the club, that I went to see the
council official responsible for the crackdown the next morning. His name is Mr Gary Jennings. He has since moved on to some other area of council work.

He was very polite and efficient at informing exactly which act (year, section, subsection etc) they were using against the folk club.
However when pressed for details of local venues which had suitable
licenses he seemed rather reluctant to tell me. I mentioned this to Ruth Bramley, she stated she'd had a similar conversation with him in the past. Why this would be I don't know. As the officer responsible for enforcement one would think that he would be intimately familiar with such information. Draw your own conclusions.

There is some other stuff that I can't comment on in detail publicly
which indicates that the council almost certainly had people attending the folk club to find out what we were going to do next. Who they/he/she are/were I have no idea. Either that or some very extreme coincidences have happened.

The folk club lives on, in severly muted form. It meets occasionally,
and as such has much smaller attendence. It also has to meet in the only suitable venue, the overly formal conference room, up a set of stairs and nowhere near the bar or toilets.

Much of my social life involves individuals that worked in other
departments for this council, and that like folk music. They were
horrified at what their own employer is doing. All of them now work for other councils.

The Red Rose folk club still runs in Sutton and Mepal, and also in two other villages. Graham Steward is no longer a councillor. Dil Owen stood for MP (in the safest Conservative seat in the country!). Dil's wife is now a councillor.

(For those that followed the IR35 fiasco, both Graham and Dil thought
IR35 was wrong, as implemented).

Stephen Kellett