Huddstock festival gets green light for this weekend

Jun 3 2009 Huddersfield Daily Examiner

THOUSANDS of people can enjoy live music this weekend after councillors gave a festival the green light.

Kirklees Council’s Licensing Panel yesterday granted permission for the third annual Huddstock event at South Crosland.

Saturday’s event – which will raise money for two good causes – features 80 acts on six stages. Organisers hope to top last year’s attendance of 3,300.

The panel approved the licence to perform live music at Lumb Head Farm on Arboray Lane between midday and 11pm and to sell alcohol from noon to 10.30pm.

The three-strong panel received one written objection to the event from resident Susan Carter. She said that last year’s festival was “absolutely ghastly, a mindless, loud, reverberating din all day and up to midnight.”

Mrs Carter added: “This is a farming and residential community, it is not Glastonbury.”

But organiser Hannah Bamforth told the panel that the last two events had passed off without any problems. She said: “We haven’t had any official complaints, the majority of residents seem happy.

“We visited 73 houses in the area to say hello and offer them tickets and we’re glad that 48 households accepted tickets.”

Huddstock will raise money for Kirkwood Hospice and the Anthony Nolan Trust. The organisers decided to help the trust in memory of Adrian Sudbury, the Examiner journalist who died of leukaemia last year aged 27.