Winchester City Council decides against altering Boomtown licence

The music festival, which takes place annually at Matterley Estate, survived a review of its licence by Winchester City Council on Thursday.

Last year, Hampshire Constabulary applied to the city council for Boomtown’s premises licence to be reviewed following the death of a 22-year-old man who was attending the festival in August.

However, the application was withdrawn at the eleventh hour, with the sub-committee deciding to postpone a decision, despite the presence of members of the public who had supported the police stance.

The licensing sub-committee (Image: Chris Atkinson) READ MORE: Boomtown licence to be reviewed by Winchester City Council

After hearing from members of the public, the sub-committee decided not to make any changes to Boomtown’s premises licence.

Terance Jones, of Lane End, Owslebury, accused the music festival of impacting local wildlife. He said: “My case is that Boomtown is harmful to protected birds, especially to a range of red-listed ground nesting birds, and to other wildlife.

“Immediately before the festival, one act of preparation is mowing between 200 to 250 hectares of grassland to create camping and car parking areas. This decimates ground nesting birds. It is important that you consider the scale of this construction operation. This is a major construction site located in the Hampshire countryside.”

Mr Jones also implied that Boomtown had breached section one of the Countryside and Wildlife Act 1981, which states that anyone who intentionally kills or injures a wild bird or destroys their nest is committing an offence. However, when questioned, Mr Jones said that he had not seen any evidence to corroborate this, and that he had not contacted police with his concerns.

Alison Matthews, of Avington, voiced her concerns about nighttime noise pollution, telling the sub-committee: “I am here to ask you to consider the position of local residents. From Wednesday to Sunday, we cannot really get very much sleep.

“I do not think it is unreasonable to sleep by midnight, but we have to choose – it gets hot in the summer, and we have to choose between opening a window or closing the window and hoping to dampen the noise. I cannot really hope to get much sleep.”

Matthew Phipps, the solicitor for Boomtown, said: “There seems to be some confusion between what the parks’ policies are and what people believe the parks’ policies are.”

The sub-committee decided not to make any changes to Boomtown’s premises licence.

Speaking after the meeting, Chris Rutherford, one of Boomtown’s directors, said: “We are happy. It was the outcome that we anticipated.”