Agenda and draft minutes

There were no disclosures by Members or Officers.

There were no disclosures of lobbying.

RESOLVED: That the Items on the Agenda be taken in public as proposed.

The Chairman requested those present to introduce themselves, explained the procedures and Members confirmed that they had read all the papers.

Mrs Bolas explained that the hearing was regarding an application to vary three conditions of a Premises Licence granted on 29 July 2013 under the Licensing Act 2003, made by Solar Collective Ltd, in respect of the premises Grid ref: TQ76730 48721, open grass field-land, with attached woodland, off Lower Farm Lane, Boughton Monchelsea.  Representations had been received from 8 other persons and no representations had been received from responsible authorities.

It was noted that a revised copy of Appendix D to the original papers had been re-circulated prior to the meeting as two conditions had been missed off the original.

Mr. Townsend, on behalf of the applicant, stated in his opening remarks that he was a Director of Solar Collective Ltd which had been set up to run events and his family had lived and worked on the Farm since 1947.

Mr. Townsend then submitted his evidence in support of the application to vary the conditions of the Premises Licence.  He stated that he and another colleague had monitored the noise levels at the event last year and at no time were the levels above those agreed.  The monitoring equated to 6 hours off site each day and they had travelled 67 miles over the weekend in the course of the monitoring.

He stated that they were aware that sound does travel and there were some concerns from the Parish Council and local residents that the noise levels were going up the hill.  To address those concerns, he intended to change the direction of the stage to the south for the next event and use objects to deflect sound up. It was hoped that this would lessen the effect of the noise for those locals to the north of the site. However, he did not want this to be a condition as it needed to remain flexible to take account of conditions. He would like to reduce the monitoring periods to 5 minutes except for inside the yard of the farm to remain at 15 minutes, (which is level with the nearest noise sensitive property and can be checked frequently.

Mr. Townsend stated that at last year’s hearing his Company suggested that each position should be monitored for noise levels at least three times a day.  As the readings that were undertaken were all well under the required levels, they felt that the frequency of monitoring the noise levels at all the locations were excessive and could be decreased to at least once during an event instead of at least three times during each day of an event. EHos have not objected. There is no change to the event itself or to the music noise level condition.

Mrs Evans, representing the views of Boughton Monchelsea Parish Council, questioned the applicant..  The Parish Council had concerns that should the proposal to move the stage not reduce the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

11.30 a.m. to 2.45 p.m.