Four-day music festival in Perranporth refused licence

Previous music events at Perranporth Airfield had attracted noise complaints

A planned music festival has been refused a licence after councillors said it would be in the wrong location and raised "serious public safety concerns".

Dean Hazell had applied for a licence to hold a four-day event at Perranporth Airfield in August.

The event would host up to 7,500 people with international DJs and bands.

Cornwall Council's licensing act sub-committee refused the licence on Wednesday.

A total of 64 people had submitted objections to the festival and the council's environmental protection department had also objected with concerns about noise nuisance.

Mr Hazell told the committee that he had more than 30 years' experience in hosting large events around the country including Cornwall, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) said.

He said there would be three marquees on the site with the largest capable of holding 6,000 people, with music types including jazz, reggae, hip hop, techno and electronic.

Mr Hazell said that whilst he wanted a licence to run until 01:00 the music would be turned down after 23:00.

Miranda Flanagan, from Cornwall Council's environmental protection unit, said they did not consider the site was suitable for a music festival.

She said previous music events held in 2015 and 2021 had resulted in complaints and said the department was already dealing with more than 100 noise complaints from activities on the airfield.

Councillors heard officers felt nobody would be able to hold an event at the location without causing public nuisance.

'Cause disturbance'

Environmental protection officer Mark Hitchens, who had previously attended the 2015 event when complaints were made, added: "My experience of that site is that anything after 11pm is going to cause disturbance.

"We are not coming from a place of absolutely no experience of noise issues at this site, we are coming from a place of experience, investigating and dealing with noise complaints. In this location it is just not suitable for such an event."

The committee agreed unanimously to refuse the application saying that there were no conditions which could be placed on any licence to address their concerns.