Stokes Bay Festival - the saga continues

Gosport’s Conservatives appear determined to make a political issue out of the Stokes Bay Festival. Moreover, the Tory leader on Gosport Council – Mark Hook – seems set on pursuing a personal vendetta against Peter Chegwyn, the Lib Dem councillor who is also the Festival’s organiser.

They have taken it upon themselves to do everything in their power to sabotage a small-scale, family-friendly folk festival by the beach by portraying it as a drug-crazed heavy metal marathon terrifying local residents and their pets etc. Unlike Councillor Hook, I live near the festival site (I can almost see it from my bedroom window). I have 2 young children, and believe me if the festival had kept us up at night or if drunken revellers had terrorised my children as they played on the beach, the festival’s organisers would have been the first to hear of it.

Instead, what we all saw was a friendly gathering of respectable, middle-aged people and their face-painted kids under a big tent from which little if any sound emanated - doubtless to the dismay of those around the perimeter hoping to catch a freebie. If I were being critical, I’d say it made Womad look wild.

What Gosport needs is more events like this, not stamping out the only one of its kind. For no apparent reason other than personal and political spite, the local Conservatives have bulldozed through a set of ridiculous restrictions on the festival’s operating licence that will make it virtually impossible for the festival to happen again.

If Councillor Hook doesn’t like it, that’s his business: he’s not obliged to go. But he has no right to spoil it for local residents. Maybe he should actually move to the area so that he can appreciate it for himself. After all, he claims to represent it in the Council chamber.