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| The Actual Glastonbury Festival NOT the Online Disastrous Version |
UPDATE (4/6/21): It is now 10 days since we wrote to GFEL to ask them to issue a refund to everybody who paid for a ticket.
We still await a reply.
Today, we have chased up GFEL and said:
"Please can we have a response.
Our campaign has generated considerable interest, and we think that your customers deserve their refund.
You could go some way to repair the damage done by making this gesture."
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Last night, the Glastonbury LiveStream event by the organisers of Glastonbury Festival - Glastonbury Festival Events Limited - was an absolute disaster.
People across the World paid money for "tickets" and could not access the stream, as reported by traditional media and on social media.
Driift have apologised. GFEL have apologised. But the situation needs to be rectified properly.
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| Apology from Driift |
Instead of issuing a refund to everyone who paid, people have to APPLY for a refund via a form, as reported by the NME.com website:
"If those ticketholders would prefer to request a refund instead, Driift Live has made a form available. Ticketholders for other timeslots should not be affected by the tech issues."
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| Driift Update and Refund Application |
We think that Glastonbury Festival should be giving refunds to everybody who paid for a ticket, because they paid but others got it for free due to the disastrously bad organisation of the event by GFEL and their contractors Driift.
This is an event which Mendip District Council, the local Licensing Authority and Planning Authority, failed to properly regulate. Not only did Mendip refuse to enforce planning rules (see the Statement we have obtained from Mendip officers below). It is also a trading standards issue.
We believe that the failure also reflects poorly on the reputation of GFEL especially in the light of the huge outcry by local residents to the new spin-off events and the impact on paying customers. Organiser Emily Eavis took to Twitter to apologise:
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| Apology from Emily Eavis of GFEL |
So as a gesture of goodwill to local residents and paying customers, we think that GFEL should do the right thing and give everyone who paid a refund.
GFEL can afford it, because they are a multi-million pounds business that is profit-making, not a charity.
We have written to GFEL to ask that they do this.
The lack of access to the LiveStream affected a lot of people - thousands or possibly tens of thousands.
One of those affected was one of the councillors on Mendip District Council's (MDC's) Licensing Sub-Committee, Cllr Helen Sprawson-White.
Days before, Cllr Sprawson-White had been involved in a decision over another spin-off event at Worthy Farm, which gave permission to the September two-day concert as described on this Somerset Independents article.
Cllr Sprawson-White took to Twitter to complain that she could not access the event. She claimed that she was given a free ticket on her Twitter feed.
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| Councillor Helen Sprawson-White Got A Free Ticket For Glastonbury |
That would be an issue for a declaration of interest at the Licensing Sub-Committee.
Yet Cllr Sprawson-White did not declare an interest and she later gave permission for the new event in September, along with MDC Cabinet Member for Economic Development, Cllr Simon Carswell. Carswell also sat on the Sub-Committee, as if it is was not a conflict of interest.
Clearly these are serious conflicts of interest.
Cllr Sprawson-White also did not declare that she is close to Cllr Francis Hayden - the councillor who told Somerset Independents that he makes money from Glastonbury Festival.
And yes, this is the same councillor who did not pay his council tax between April 2020 and February 2021, as documented elsewhere on this website.
These are glaring conflicts of interest, which are not stopped or managed at MDC.
To the average person, it would seem reasonable to conclude that such dealings are encouraged by MDC councillors in private and behind closed doors.
Somerset Independents has proved to the Council's External Auditor that meetings involving property dealings were not open or transparent. The Auditor made a ruling to that effect to the Council.
MDC cannot claim ignorance. Somerset Independents has warned them of these conflicts of interest. But it has not prevented them - time and time again.
MDC and GFEL are too cosy, say local residents. And MDC believe the hype from GFEL, despite being the Licensing Authority that is supposed to hold the licensee to account.
MDC have used specious rationale that have nothing to do with licensing or planning rules. The evidence is clear.
The organisers of Glastonbury Festival, Glastonbury Festival Events Ltd (GFEL), have told the World that if Glastonbury Festival did not go ahead two years in a row, that they might go bankrupt. Then later, they claimed that it would all be OK.
This was before they announced new spin-off events that impact on local residents, and now we have seen - on the "global audience" of Worthy Farm.
We say that GFEL announced to "the World", because they tend to favour national, London-based and international media who are based outside Somerset, instead of local media that exists for local residents.
As well as claiming potential bankruptcy, GFEL have claimed that they need more events to "compensate" for the loss of the festivals to Covid-19 restrictions and associated Government laws and guidance.
As we have documented on this website and on our Twitter feed, Mendip District Council (MDC) have willingly fallen for such claims and used specious rationale to make quasi-legal and legal decisions under planning and licensing law.
MDC have also allowed conflicts of interest and a criminal offence to be committed in relation to failures by a councillor to register interests on the councillor's declaration of interest. We have the evidence. But do MDC investigate? No.
These conflicts of interest relate directly to the income of at least one councillor (Cllr Hayden, the councillor who didn't pay his council tax or update his register of interests), and probably more Mendip councillors involved in the organising of events in Somerset.
Local residents have told MDC that the "supine" Council "bent over backwards" to cater for GFEL. Any reasonable person would conclude that Mendip does not make decisions in the interests of residents, but for the benefit of councillors instead. Anybody who stands in the way is ignored, threatened or persecuted by Mendip. This includes local residents in Pilton.
It looks like the local residents' allegations are correct, because we have obtained a Statement from MDC Planning. Please see below. MDC issued the Statement just three days prior to the disastrous LiveStream event.
We know that the Statement was prepared with the knowledge of the Chair of Planning, Councillor Damon Hooton plus the Vice-Chair Councillor Nigel Hewitt-Cooper, who is also the ward member for Pilton. Residents of Pilton have been affected by GFEL at Worthy Farm for decades. The incidents they report are very worrying.
The Statement below by MDC makes it clear that MDC had no intention of enforcing planning. Planning Enforcement officers also knew of the Statement.
In the Statement, MDC says that the:
"virtual event would require planning permission."
but that:
"we will not be taking planning enforcement action in this case."
So MDC knew that GFEL would breach planning, but chose to do nothing about it. They wrongly assumed that residents would support their selective application of planning rules.
It is the "wellbeing" of the residents that should be their consideration, not of a "global audience". As we have said, they are using specious rationale for their planning and licensing decisions. MDC put the wrong interests at the heart of decisions that affect local people.
The lack of enforcement by MDC on GFEL, is in stark contrast to the
threats of enforcement handed out to small businesses and residents who
have broken planning rules in the Mendip area. MDC come down like a
tonne of bricks on the little guys and girls, but not on GFEL.
Somerset Independents was formed to stand up for local residents, and to challenge local authorities who put themselves and narrow self-interest ahead of the needs of the local population.
Mendip District Council have now been shown to have conspired to break their own planning rules, and used specious licensing rationale in their decisions.
Mendip District Council have not managed conflicts of interest by councillors making key decisions.
Mendip District Council have conspired to rip-off the "global audience" of people who paid their money and who believed that they were supporting charities.
Instead, the "global audience" were inadvertently helping MDC to breach planning rules and impact on local residents once again.
If MDC had done its job as a local authority, perhaps GFEL would have organised an event that worked, instead of the total disaster that unfolded.
Somerset Independents will be making further enquiries on how this disaster was allowed to occur.
Mendip District Council's Statement on the Glastonbury LiveStream
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