Disappointing news came this week in the form of the announcement that the annual free Lambeth Country Show in Brockwell Park will be scrapped next year.
Lambeth said the decision to cancel the event was because they could no longer afford to put it on because they would need to find more than £1 million.
But there are also questions over the extent to which this summer’s legal ruling impacted on the decision.
Brockwell Park became the subject of a legal fight earlier this year, when frustrated local residents took the council to court, complaining about the number of festivals in the park.
The legal case hinged on a technicality within planning legislation that states you need to have permission for a formal change of land use lasting more than 27 days.
They worked out that all the time it took to assemble and dismantle the festival meant parts of the park were walled off for 37 days a year without planning permission.
Lambeth said axing the Country Show would reduce the overall amount of time each summer that Brockwell Park was walled off.
And the local authority has said it will now require each festival in the park to apply for individual planning permission.
But it’s a shame – although maybe unsurprising – that it is the free event which gets scrapped when residents complain about the use of parks for festivals.
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There are also questions to be asked around why Lambeth said they suddenly couldn’t afford to put it on, having previously said that allowing commercial festivals to take place in Brockwell Park saved them £700,000 from the cost of putting on the Country Show.
Was the Country Show axed because they wanted to reduce the number of weeks the park was closed off for festivals, without losing the money from the commercial events?
Or do they think that some of the commercial festivals might not be able to go ahead, meaning they won’t be able to afford to put on the Country Show?
The Lambeth Country Show is an institution to the people of Lambeth and Southwark as it borders both boroughs and has been going for 51 years – attracting annual crowds of 120,000. A few years ago they talked about charging a small fee of £1 or £2 – surely this would be perferable to it being ditched entirely?
