Councillors are being asked to give their views on a five-year outdoor events strategy for Brighton and Hove next week.
Brighton and Hove City Council’s draft outdoor events strategy is due to be presented to the council’s Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday (25 March) before going to the cabinet in May.
This year’s programme was approved by the cabinet last November and includes three major events – the Rugby World Cup, Pride and the Brighton Marathon.
It also includes 10 outdoor festivals including the Brighton Festival and Fringe in May and On The Beach – as well as more than 100 civic and community events .
According to a report, outdoor events generate £650,000 in fees and the council aims to increase this to more than £1 million.
For the next 10 years, the council is looking to widen the programme to include markets and develop the night-time economy.
Priority areas include encouraging more diverse events by finding cultural gaps in the programme and developing “homegrown” organisations.
A presentation to the cabinet said that the council had started regular resident forums which it wanted to expand as well as creating an events portal on the council website to allow for feedback and improvements.
The report to the committee said: “We want to ensure the programme is fair and inclusive, representative of and accessible to all our evolving communities, with strong community ownership, as well as providing opportunities for local businesses and talent to grow and lead.
“There will continue to be a strong commercial drive to both understand how we can drive even greater benefits to the local economy building on the £120 million benefits currently estimated, as well securing greater income and media coverage for these events.”
The Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee is due to meet at Hove Town Hall at 2pm next Tuesday (25 March). The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
The council have demonstrated time and time again that they have not carried out appropriate impact assessments in thier noise management plan. This is clearly evidence by the amount of noise complaints from residents. The council also hide behind out dated policies in relation to how they handle noise complaints from an event they have given licence to. No one is saying outdoor events should not take place but the council have to give care and consideration to the negative impact these events have on the lives of residents directly impacted.
It would be nice to have some classical music outdoors, but I guess that wouldn’t work in Brighton. Not so diverse perhaps. There was a time when the Brighton Festival was considered too highbrow, now it appears to have gone to the other extreme.
A fund built up from a £1 levy on big ticket events sales should be implemented immediately and distributed through in independent body and made available to communities where the event is held . Similar to what Pride does with their Pride Impact Fund. Its not good enough to say the council benefits, when that is not transparent or accountable. They ignore the residents whose lives are disturbed and are not compensated in any way. Engage with business, residents and communities. Change the status quo and hold the right event in the right place which includes the communities crying out to hold events. Until this happens the Council cannot claim to be listening. Is their a councillor who will say this at The Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee?
Communities can hold events though. It’s easy to get permission to hold a community event in a local park etc. We have had a few over recent years in my local area and it’s local people who organise them. It’s good that we have a range of events in the city over the summer months. It is a city after all. Take the Children’s Parade, Pride Parade and the Burning of the Clocks parade, the streets are absolutely lined with local people enjoying the events. I really hope that no-one does overturn the events ethos that we currently have. Events are for the benefit of us city dwellers are they not? I think i heard that revenue from the events (fees that the big event holders have to pay to run the event on council land) goes into the general funding pot and so goes toward the running of the city and i know that the big events pay money to cover the costs of the clean up afterwards.