Assistant director of public health Paul Nicholas and licensing officer Fred Spriggs met with the organisers of the Jamstand Festival this afternoon (9 August 2010) to discuss possible options for staging an event next month.
Paul Nicholas said: "The Jamstand organisers now accept the festival cannot go ahead this coming weekend but they and the council are still keen to stage an event later in the year. They have now gone away to look at options further and these include merging with another festival or else submitting an application to hold an event next month and we will be working closely with them".
"Herefordshire stages many successful music events each year such as the Big Chill and Nostock and we want to help any organisers in submitting the necessary paperwork, but without it we cannot grant a licence".
"Licences are essential for events such as this as they ensure the right measures have been taken by the organiser to keep the public safe and also prevent any public nuisance".
For events like Jamstand to be lawful there must be either a Premises Licence or Temporary Event Notice (TEN) in place and, despite efforts on the part of the council to ensure that an application was made, neither was applied for.