We thank you for the opportunity to comment on this important subject and in particular appreciate the change to a more open form of consultation which allows suggestions to be aired and explored. This contrasts well with previous Council ‘consultations’ which were often narrow, simplistic and too obviously designed to produce a pre-determined result which agreed with officers’ preferred proposals.
Our views can be summarised as follows:
- The management plan should be for spaces all the year round, not just for events
- Primary use is to be as open space, with events as occasional users
- Spreading events over a larger area of the city, consistent with protection of amenity
- Distinguish between community and commercial events; and note quality of events
- All commercial events to be subject to full consultation, not just notification
- Environmental protection and controlling impact
- Financial and economic impacts
- Robust and efficient management
- All requirements / restrictions etc to be strongly enforced
Detailed comments on each of these topics are set out below.