Oyster Festival gets licence despite residents’ concerns

The Festival will be held in the village next weekend (September 1-4) but two special meetings of the Council’s Environmental Services Committee have been held over the last few weeks to hear representations from the festival organisers, as well as local residents, who feel more should be done to minimise the impact of the annual festival.

Addressing members of the Committee, Mrs Nessa O’Callaghan, Major Edwin Parks and Dr O’Gorman stressed that residents did not want the festival to be stopped but wanted to outline their objections to the granting of a public entertainment licence for the Oyster Festival in its current location and for the times applied for.

Residents’ concerns included the time span of the festival, noise nuisance, difficulties in accessing their homes, damage to listed properties brought about by vibrations from the loud music played in the marquee and inappropriate behaviour by patrons leaving the event.

Major Parks advised the committee that he had met with the Chairman of the Hillsborough Oyster Festival and made a number of suggestions for the Committee’s consideration, including the relocation of the festival, an earlier finishing time for the entertainment, more robust arrangements to clear people out of the area quickly and quietly and to provide a direct liaison for the residents.

Responding to residents concerns, the Chairman of the Hillsborough Oyster Festival Organising Committee, Mr Sean Hall, said the Committee would do “everything in its power” to advise taxi companies of the finishing time of the event and try to ensure that taxis were available to take patrons home and to ensure sufficient security staff were present to guide patrons away from the area.

Mr Hall also said that consideration would be given to the possibility of relocating next year’s festival to the Secret Garden in Hillsborough.

Following discussions by the members of the Committee, the Chairman, Councillor Andrew Ewing advised the residents and the festival organisers, that a Public Entertainment Licence would be granted on a provisional basis and would only become formal once the marquee had been erected and inspected by Council officers.

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