A festival organiser has secured a three-year licence for a park in Lambeth.  

Brockwell Park by Herne Hill and Tulse Hill has hosted events from The Mighty Hoopla since 2018.  

In December, organisers applied for a three-year licence to cover three days during May or June – this year will include day festivals Wide Awake, Mighty Hoopla, and Cross the Tracks from Friday, June 5.   

A licensing sub-committee approved the application on Tuesday, February 25, subject to a set of conditions yet to be published.  

Music will be played from 11am to 10.45pm on Friday and Saturday, and from 11am to 10.15pm on Sunday.   

Alcohol will be served until 15 minutes before closing. The events will be glass free except for a VIP area, which will have glass bottles “of prosecco and champagne”.  

Staggered closing of stages was agreed to stop people flooding out at the same time.  

The events company must notify the council of the selected weekend eight months in advance, but did not guarantee that the weekends would not affect school or bank holidays.  

Representing Mighty Hoopla, Simon Taylor said the company had 16 years of experience in events.   

“There were certain matters which required attention from last year’s event, such as CCTV and improvement of traffic management, those have been addressed and are continuing to be addressed,” he said.  

Two locals who attended the meeting, argued that the council was “losing control” if it handed over a three-year licence rather than one.  

Dean Litter said the park will be out of action for three weekends rather than one but the committee heard this was “unavoidable” because of health and safety.  

Mr Litter said: “The set-up date this year goes into the half term. 

“It is a public park […] People use it extensively, the part where the festival is held is overwhelmingly used by hundreds of people on a sunny day and it will be out of action for at least three weekends. 

“It’s not just the weekend it’s on, it’s the weekend setting up and taking down so it’s a major disruption.” 

He questioned why the company needed a licence for three days spread over two months, adding: “It seems a massive flexibility. They can choose the long weekend which would be even more disruptive.” 

A representative for Mighty Hoopla said it needed the flexibility to attract music talent.  

Concerns were also raised about noise, litter, and the impact on local traders. 

Resident Michael Boyle said: “Three days of relentless pounding music, crowds, litter, and partial close-down of the neighbourhood must surely be seen as an unacceptable invasion of any local living environment. 

“And for local businesses, there has been very little comment on the survey from Friends of Brockwell Park last year on over 100 local business located around the park in which twice as many businesses reported negative impacts on their trade as reported positive. 

“For some, telephone orders comprise a large part of their trade.  

“Last year the intensity of telephone traffic coming from the events in the park basically meant the shut-down of that telephone business.” 

Mr Boyle was also concerned about the impact of the events on the park.  

“The damage from tens of thousands of trampling, dancing feet is not just doubled and tripled by the second and third day, it is exponentially compounded to an infinitely greater degree”, he said.   

In response to the objections, Mr Taylor said if anything were to go wrong, the council could review the licence.  

He said that Mighty Hoopla’s plans for its chosen weekend must be reviewed each year and “unless these plans are approved within the timescales, the event won’t be able to take place”.  

Mr Taylor added: “We use local businesses to buy materials from them. We invite local traders to operate food trade, we pay our staff in cash so that they can have their sustenance locally and at the craft beer market for the Sunday, 50 per cent of the breweries that will be attending will be local.  

“We have robust licence conditions which deal with the collection of litter and waste. 

“There is also a land licence, it covers a pre-site survey, on-site inspection, post-event inspection and reinstatement to the park.  

“We don’t leave the park in a state of being disfigured […] we want to be a good neighbour for three years.” 

Chair of the licensing sub-committee, Councillor Emma Nye, said the reasons for approval “would follow in due course”.