Isle of Wight Council chiefs failed to sign off the master plan for this year’s traffic-roadblock IOW Festival, VentnorBlog can reveal.
While refusing to give any details of the plan, which is supposed to cover everything from accident reporting procedures to food safety, officers have been forced to admit that director Stuart Love and deputy Council leader George Brown did not sign off the detailed Event Safety and Operational Plan (ESOP), as required by the Council committee which granted the Festival a rolling licence.
As previously reported, the Council has blocked publication of the entire ESOP, citing confidentiality, after a Freedom of Information request by VB.
The request followed chaos on the festival’s opening days when traffic between ferry ports and the Seaclose site became gridlocked because muddy conditions made entrance to the site impossible.
Traffic management: One of 22 points
Traffic management is one of 22 bullet points supposed to have been sorted out months in advance. And while it might be quite possible to argue that this summer’s weather couldn’t have been foreseen, the ESOP is all that anyone has as a starting point for the “learning the lessons” exercise we’ve been promised.
Yet resident of the Island are not allowed to see it – any of it – or be given the remotest clue as to whether it bears any resemblance to what was supposed to be produced.
The document is supposed to be submitted by Festival organiser, Solo, and then scrutinised by the council before being accepted and signed off.
ESOP not signed off
What we do now know, though – through a separate FOI request – is that the procedure for approving the ESOP wasn’t carried out.
Minutes from a May, 2011, meeting of the Licensing (Determinations) Sub-Committee, chaired by Cllr Susan Scoccia (Ventnor West) include the following:
“The Licence holder must obtain written approval for the Event Safety and Operational Plan from the Licensing Authority at least 14 days prior to the event.”
and
“The event safety and operational plan would be agreed annually and signed off by the relevant Director and Cabinet Member.”
Copies of written approval not found
So the FOI question posed to the council was this:
“In respect of the 2012 Isle of Wight Festival, would you please let me have copies of both the draft and final ESOPs submitted; and a copy of the Licensing Authority’s written approval of the final draft, if given.”
… and the council’s reply? (before going on to refuse the actual ESOP documents)
“With respect to the written approval of the ESOP we can confirm that the Council does not hold any such information. We have been advised by relevant officers that when the draft ESOP was circulated all responsible authorities were satisfied with the content.”
Time to move on?
The “relevant Director”? Well that would be Stuart Love (economy and the environment), who within days of the shambles went on radio telling us it was time to “move on”.
(BTW – Unconfirmed rumours have it that he has a strong potential as the next Chief Exec of the council.)
And the “relevant Cabinet member”? Step forward George Brown (economy and licensing), who had a lot to say in the festival’s aftermath about its benefits to the Island and getting it right next time.
Response from those involved
VB asked Messrs Love and Brown this morning if they were presented with it to be signed off? Who was the Officer responsible? Why didn’t they sign it off? and Did they have proof that it has actually been signed off in previous years?
In her role as head of the Licensing Committee at the time we asked Susan Scoccia (who is currently Chair of the Isle of Wight council), how she responds to the news that the instruction of her committee wasn’t carried out?
Cllr Scoccia is the only of them to have responded by the time we published. She said, “As Chairman of the Licensing Committee at the time, we, the Licensing (Determinations) Sub-Committee determined the application as required by the Licensing Act 2003. After that, it is for the Licensing Authority to follow up on our decision.”
We’ll update with any further replies we might get.
Image: nerdcoregirl under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license
