Newham councillors have refused permission for a Caribbean festival to take place in Beckton Park next month, sparking dismay from organisers who say the decision has scuppered plans to bring the long-running event to east London for the first time.
The Windrush Festival, which had been earmarked for Sunday 21 June, was denied a premises licence after the council's licensing sub-committee raised a string of concerns over transport, road safety and the potential for public nuisance.
Organiser Wendy Cummins told the Local Democracy Reporting Service she was "deeply disappointed" with the outcome, having spent more than a year in talks with the council about staging the festival in the borough.
Events company Radiate Festival, which runs the celebration of Windrush heritage, had hoped to bring the event to Beckton Park after previous outings south of the river — at Crystal Palace Park in 2018, 2019 and 2021, and Burgess Park in 2022 and 2023. Cummins said she had chosen Beckton because it was a "large, flat expansive area" and a "great space for events."
The application, lodged on 6 March, would have allowed the sale of alcohol and live music for a crowd of up to 4,999 people. But Newham's highways and transport department objected, flagging worries about parking pressures and whether the Docklands Light Railway could cope with festivalgoers. Officers also raised the prospect of vehicles entering the site clashing with pedestrians, and possible damage to pavements.
The Town Hall's licensing team wanted to know how attendees would be guided to and from DLR stations, and how organisers planned to make sure people left the area after the event rather than lingering to drink in surrounding streets.
Highways officers said Radiate Festival would need to apply and pay for an events traffic order to safeguard emergency access, alongside an updated traffic management plan. Licensing officers requested a beefed-up event management plan covering security, accessibility and noise.
In response, Cummins said she had revised her plan and pointed to her experience running similar events since 2018. Council papers note she highlighted that the park "has benefited from previous events such as funfair event and they were able to use the pathway of the park for larger and heavier vehicles," and that she had been speaking to the parks team to bridge the gaps identified.
It was not enough. Meeting on Monday 11 May, with the decision published on 22 May, councillors ruled that her plan "does not go far enough to address the concerns raised by the responsible authorities and nothing was presented, or any evidence given by the applicant that could give them reasons to depart from the advice of the responsible authorities." The committee did, however, welcome the aim of staging the festival.
Cummins told the LDRS she had been exploring extra parking options and insisted the transport concerns were overstated. "With intergenerational numbers of less than 5,000 people, the multi-modes of transport taken would have more than accommodated needs of visitors," she said. "There would also have been a fair proportion of local people attending the event not using public transportation at all."
She added that the additional cost of an events traffic order and ground survey fees "made the event cost prohibitive to a small organiser delivering a community event."
