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The Chair welcomed residents from the Victoria Park Friends to make a verbal presentation to the committee, highlighting the lack of meaningful consultation around the large events and the importance of the park for the community.

The committee made the following comments and questions:

• What would meaningful consultation mean to residents? Residents felt currently, finding out about licensing is seeing a notice pinned up on a fence, so improving on this would be a great start. Engaging with park uses and residents to understand the impact large scale projects would help and stating mitigations that have been put in place.
• The council plans to put in place community days within the park, how effective will this be? Residents stated that the council has run these events in the past with commercial partners, which has seen success, including increased event infrastructure for the bandstand and allowing residents to bring their own food and drink to community events. However increased commercial events in the park will have a huge impact on residents without their own gardens who need access to green space, which community days will not be supportive enough of.
• The council sent out over 1500 consultation letters to residents about the large events planned in the park, but only received around 3 back, what is the resident view on this? Was it made clear that the council will generate a lot of revenue to fund council services? This is along with online advertisement as well. Residents detailed that as the council has been running events for so long in the park, not many residents would just respond to these letters without incentive, however residents do feel the increased events will have an impact. While it will generate revenue, this is not the primary purpose of the park, which is for public recreation.
• Where residents aware of the possibility of the contract being extended? Residents confirmed that they were aware of the extension, but they thought it would go out to public tender instead.
• As only a small part of the park will be used by the large events, do residents not see any benefits to the park being used in this way? Residents corrected the statement, saying it is around 40 per cent of the usable area will be taken up by events. There are of course benefits, many residents are looking forward to events, but as many residents rely on the park, the benefits do come at a cost to residents in social housing who rely on the park.

Cllr Marc Francis presented the reasons for call-in on behalf of the Call-in members and proposed alternative course of action as set out in the report.

Cllr Marc Francis questioned comments made by Cllr Bodrul Choudhury about 1500 consultation letters being sent out to residents, from the council, when it does not appear this was the case.

The committee made the following comments and questions:

• As a local councillor, why do you feel this decision should be sent back to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.1