Public Meeting about the Globe

The Council Chambers would have been far too small - the venue of the meeting was changed at the last minute to the school, with a couple of people re-directing those who went to the Council Chambers first. The school hall was full, with people standing at the back. John Harris chaired the meeting. He lives in Broad Street, not far from the Globe, and is occasionally seen on Newsnight, being one of Hay's mildly famous people. He turned out to be one of the people who put out the HELP leaflet drawing attention to the license application.
Gareth Ratcliffe sat with him, in his capacity as our brand new county councillor. He has his own concerns about the application, but for the meeting he was there to explain how the licensing laws work, and to listen to what came out of the meeting, so he could take forward a consensus view to the County Council.
Mandy was there, too, with her sister and a few supportive friends. She's taken the job of manager of the Globe, after running the Wholefood shop successfully for many years. She was a very worried woman when I spoke to her earlier in the afternoon.
When she was asked if she would be willing to answer questions, she did point out that she hadn't actually been invited to the meeting, and it might have been better if she had. Also, Hilary Lawson, the new owner of the Globe, was in London and hadn't been able to get away at such short notice. While she was at it, she scotched the rumour that Hilary Lawson was any relation of Nigella Lawson (I'm rather disappointed by that - the idea lent him a certain glamour). He does, however, have various media interests, including involvement in a TV company and video art instillations, as well as a hotel in Bristol. He also writes philosophy books and has a house in Craswell.
The main point at issue was the length of the license. Mandy said that they had been advised to apply for the longest possible opening hours, which the licensing body would then place restrictions on according to the criteria they follow and any objections they recieved. Gareth confirmed that this is how the system works. The general public don't know this, of course, so when they see a license covering a period up to 2 and 3am, the natural assumption is that those are the hours that the premises wants to be open.
The main objections to this were the lack of any parking, and the late night noise from events themselves and from people attending the events when they went home. Most people living close to the Globe have experienced what a 24 hour license over the Festival is like, two years ago, and they don't want to go through that again, thank you.
When questioned about the sort of events that would be put on, Mandy's ideas seemed pretty nebulous. It's early days, of course, with a lot of building work needing to be done before the Globe can re-open, but her vagueness was a bit worrying, especially since she seems not to have given any thought to when she wants to open over this coming Festival, and that's only about two weeks away. She also talked about putting on films, and serving glasses of wine - but said that the audience for a film would only be about 20 people. If so, I can't see how the Globe could possibly be viable financially.
At this stage, though, the exact nature of events is beside the point. Neighbours of the Globe wanted to be re-assured that there would not be parking in the residential streets, and that there would not be noise late at night. With such late opening times, they also wanted to be re-assured that drinkers from the local pubs would not make their way down to the Globe to continue drinking into the small hours. None of these problems seems to have been considered so far at all, but they are all easily foreseeable problems, and of course the neighbours want to be re-assured that the new owners have thought about this and planned accordingly.
I came away with the distinct impression that the ideas for the proposed art centre haven't been sufficiently thought through, and I had several conversations today which confirmed that other people at the meeting had the same impression. Mandy and Hilary Lawson have a lot of convincing to do to get local people on their side.
Mandy said that Hilary Lawson will be at the Globe a week on Monday (19th May) at 7.30pm, to be available to talk to any comers about their concerns.
John Harris has started a blog where he will post the latest news about the applications and what's happening with the Globe generally. It's at http://helphay.blogspot.com/
The next stage is that a licensing officer will be at the next Council meeting, on the first Monday of next month. Any member of the public is entitled to turn up to observe, and Gareth made sure as mayor that any public attending would also get a chance to speak, which was not the case formerly.
After that there will be the Review Board in Brecon. Again, any member of the public is entitled to attend.

Some people at the meeting were in favour of having an arts centre at the Globe - it wasn't out and out opposition - but no-one wanted late night events there, for all the practical reasons related to parking and the Globe's position on a difficult corner, and the problems of noise in a building that isn't soundproofed.