Eco-festival choked into closing by police stranglehold

One of the UK’s longest running eco-festivals is set to lose thousands of pounds after police forced organisers to cancel this year’s festival at the last minute.

Over 20,000 revellers were expected to turn up this week for the Big Green Gathering in Medip, Somerset.

Organisers were forced to cancel the five day festival of arts, culture and music at the weekend after Mendip council and the police sought an injunction to have it closed down.

Festival organisers accused the police of having political motives for closing down the event and of deliberately attempting to bankrupt the festival.

Brig Oubridge, chair of the festival, said: “At the multi-agency meeting on Thursday 23rd July, we were still negotiating with the police and the council under the genuine belief that things were progressing and we were continuing to spend money on infrastructure, wages and security.

“If [the police] knew they were going to cancel the event, we can only conclude that this drive to increase expenditure appears to be a deliberate attempt to bankrupt the Big Green Gathering.

“It was a premeditated political decision made at least a week ago.

“There were going to be people from the Climate Camp here as well as Plane Stupid. It could be seen by police as gathering ground of radicals.”

Green campaign groups, who traditionally use the festival to boost fundraising and attract supporters, are set to lose out on thousands of pounds.

Climate Camp, Transition Towns and Plane Stupid had all planned to use the festival to raise funds and awareness.

“We had a stall and three talks scheduled so it was obviously one of our big outreach events of the Summer,” said Liz, Plane Stupid spokesperson.

“It’s a really good place to network with other green groups - probably one of the reasons the police wanted to stop it.”

Rob Hopkins. co-founder of Transition Towns, said he was “very disappointed”.

“Pulling it so close to the time, I can only imagine how some people have ended up out of pocket,” he said.

A spokesperson for Avon and Somerset police said: “The event was not cancelled by the police or Mendip district council. The organisers voluntarily surrendered their licence yesterday; therefore it was their decision to cancel, not ours.

“The fact that they voluntarily surrendered their licence suggests they did not feel they could satisfy the safety concerns.”

However, chief superintendent Paul Richards admitted that the decision was political and that orders to close down the festival came from the ‘highest level’.

During a meeting with the gathering’s directors, Richards said the decision to shut down the festival was made a week ago, confirming a statement from the BBG’s lawyer that the injunction was a ‘red herring’.