I have sent the following letter to the Echo. I don't suppose this will be printed either.

The Echo's comment 8 May 2003, expresses concern over divisions among folk enthusiasts over a folk festival 'boycott'. However I would like to point out that this word was first introduced in the Echo on 27 December 2002. If 'groups' were urging people not to attend, there may some justification in the use of this word. This was not what was being urged by any 'group' and these are not the divisions that should be of most concern.

People were informed the facts and urged to express their views to Weymouth and Portland Borough Council over their policy and copy these to the Echo. This policy is the root cause of all these supposed divisions, it also presents the risk to the success or otherwise of the council organised Weymouth Folk Festival. The point was to highlight the threat the policy presented, in order that this totally unnecessary threat could be removed. As it can so very easily be removed, where there is a will locally to do so.

That the row over entertainment licenses should be distanced from the festival is the wish of many, whose business is not politics. However, councillors, whose business it is, have known for a long time that it was their local policy that presented the threat to its success - as Peter Chegwyn, both an elected councillor and festival organiser in Gosport, pointed out clearly in his letter to the Echo 1st January 2003. "I am afraid Tom Grainger chief executive of Weymouth and Portland Borough Council, is sadly mistaken if he thinks his council's over-zealous enforcement of outdated laws relating to live music venues will not affect the council's own folk music festival in 2003."   

So why was this policy not reviewed by a policy making committee prior to this event, as energetically requested for over two years, and advice not sought from people like Peter Chegwyn, to see if the threat could be removed, especially in the 4 months since the Echo's first story? The answer is that the Council's non- elected officers had just as energetically resisted this request.

There will no doubt be loud claims from the Council of how successful this 2nd event was. This should not disguise the fact that with a little joined-up thinking from our officers and a bit more courage shown by our councillors in challenging them, the event could have been even more successful, as the honest efforts of all those working on the ground, both paid and unpaid, so richly deserve.

The threat is not a boycott, but the Council is in competition. There are many folk festivals and there are others on this same weekend. If outside folk are to be attracted to this one, the Council need good public relations and not to be seen as leading official kill-joys (as they are currently). A change of policy, even at this late stage will guarantee that good publicity…………… Does your councillor support this view? For I have not found one who does. So why then does this borough hold this damaging policy when it is clear that they do NOT have to?

Will our elected members finally review this unpopular policy and remove this threat?

Currently this local policy means for example that The National Anthem sung by three unpaid pub customers every Friday night, will be considered in this borough as 'performers' in a 'performance' of public entertainment. This will be illegal and deemed to have made the safe, inspected and already licensed premises - unsafe without additional payment and application to the Council for a Public Entertainment Licence. The licensee will be liable to a £20,000 fine or six months in prison if this singing takes place without a PEL.

The Echo's editorial comment ignores the second threat, which is the important point that for the second time no official festival events were planned for Portland.

Councillor Ellis also in the Echo 8 May 2003, may feel that "the event is putting Weymouth on the folk music map" (Portland apparently not even appearing as in a little box in the corner).

But this is the point is where the serious divisions are being engendered by this lack of joined-up thinking. Surely when the Borough of Weymouth and Portland funds events it should be the whole Borough that benefits and Weymouth AND Portland, being put on the map?