Black Horse Festival plans thrown out

Rother's Licensing and General Purposes Committee general licensing panel turned down plans to move the Black Horse Festival to the Pestalozzi International Village because it felt the noise generated could disturb villagers.

The panel also said it felt the festival committee "did not demonstrate a sufficient pre-application health and safety assessment".

Organisers of the Black Horse Festival applied to move the event to Pestalozzi after 21 years at the Black Horse pub in Telham.

The committee wants to move the festival from the pub as they say there is no room for expansion on the site and fear the event may not survive.

If the plans had been granted, organisers wanted to expand the festival, with more music performances and introduce camping for visitors.

They said they were not aiming to attract huge numbers of people in a bid to keep the intimate feel of the festival, which is targeted at a folk audience.

But the plans were not well-received by some Sedlescombe residents, prompting some to write to Rother to object to the festival, scheduled to take place on May 28-31.

The main concerns expressed by villagers were over noise from music and visitors, crime and disorder and public safety from increased traffic.

The plans were originally due to be discussed by Rother on February 8, but this was put back to earlier this week for a specialist noise report to be prepared.

Licensing panel chairman Cllr Christopher Starnes said: "Having listened carefully to all the representations made to the panel, the council has decided to refuse this application.

"The applicant could not satisfy the committee that noise levels from the event would not cause a disturbance, neither did they demonstrate a sufficient pre-application health and safety assessment.

"Overall, the panel felt the applicant failed to promote the licensing objectives of public safety and the prevention of any public nuisance."

The Black Horse Festival committee is chaired by Mick Hoad, who has stage-managed other music festivals, including Global Fusion and Wallingford Bunkfest, and co-produced the Autumn Chill event at Crowhurst Park, where he also runs the monthly music club.

Mr Hoad is also the health and safety manager at Crowhurst Park.

Site manager David Hoad has stage-managed other music festivals and for the last three years has acted as site manager for Battle Bonfire.