The Town Council's Festival Review

The big issue this year, even more than previous years, has been the problems of parking. The weather has been wet this year, but there have been wet years before when car parking in fields had to be closed.
The councillors wanted to have a meeting with the police, traffic enforcement agencies and both Festivals as a matter of urgency, and in private, to deal with parking for next year. Gareth said that the police already want to set up such a meeting, and have already got in touch with him. Clyro and Llanigon councils should also be involved, because of the roadside parking up the hill from the bridge, and the parking that goes into Llanigon's area, so the County Council should also be involved as it affects a group of local councils.
Gareth said that he had spoken to Peter Florence already, after midnight one evening of the Festival.
Alan Powell, whose workshop is close to the Globe, said that he had tried to sort out a traffic jam caused by a delivery lorry at the Globe on one day. It had parked so that the shuttle bus couldn't get past up Heol-y-dwr, and there was a tailback to the clocktower - and he just got a mouthful of abuse. There didn't seem to be anyone from the Globe supervising, either. On another occasion he approached a visitor parking around Booth Gardens, which is supposed to be for residents only, and again got abuse for his trouble - so he's not going to do anything like that again!
Steve Like suggested that the shuttle buses should reverse their route, and it should be easier to get round. It would also prevent tailbacks by the bus stop at the clocktower up the hill if they stopped on the other side of the road.
Gareth put up advisory "No Parking" signs, but several of them were moved about by residents!
Fiona Howard has had emails saying how nice the people of Hay are, and what a pity that the parking spoiled things.
The Globe Festival is expanding every year, but they don't make any attempt to provide parking, whereas the main Hay Festival makes great efforts - they even delivered 50 lorry loads of hardcore to Clyro for hard standing for the wet weather car park at their own expense.
There was talk of refusing the license for the Globe's festival next year unless they made provision for parking, since they are now attracting a crowd of around 35,000. The girders they have put in to extend the area they can use in the little field by the road were mentioned. They do not have planning permission, and they are now being investigated by the County Council's Enforcement Officer (or possibly the National Park - I wasn't quite clear there) after several residents complained.
So Gareth will go to the police meeting and take the council's concerns with him.
The Environmental Health department have also been out to monitor noise levels, because of previous complaints about the Globe. The problem is mainly that of smokers congregating outside and people leaving in the early hours of the morning, but the checks found that the noise levels were within the recommended limits, and the marquees closed at 11pm, with any further events happening inside the main building.
Over the week, there has only been one formal complaint to the County Council.
All the traffic wardens in Powys were in Hay on one day, as well - it was noted that the County Council sees Hay as a "cash cow" - "over-zealous" was the polite term used.
Someone also asked if they could find out how much money the main car park took during the Festival. Steve Like pointed out that neither Festival booklet makes any mention of where to park, whereas when he's gone to Festivals in other parts of the country there are clear directions in the Festival booklets.

Another issue brought up over the Festival period was the pop-up shops, and people selling tea and cakes in their gardens. The Food Hygiene people came round to do spot checks during the Festival, and found that all the pop-ups had their paperwork in order - they need to apply for a license 28 days in advance. None of them seemed to have displayed their hygiene rating, which is a legal requirement, though they all had a proper rating. Gareth said he'd been round with the Food Hygiene people, and it had been quite an eye opener - some kitchens that he thought were very clean (and he has worked in the food industry, being the previous owner of the chip shop) were marked down because of poor paperwork, while kitchens he thought could be better got higher scores because they had all the right paperwork.

Also on the topic of the Festival, but not part of the Council meeting - I went into the newsagents the other day, and was given a Festival Telegraph bag with my purchase (for 10p). Margaret there was fuming because she hadn't had very many from the organisers this year, but at the end of the Festival the Telegraph stall on the site had given away a couple of boxes full of bags to one of the charities, when they could have been used during the week through the shop. She has been dividing up the bags she has left as fairly as she can between her regular customers.