A ROW between organisers and councillors over the timings of Witney Music Festival may be brewing again.

A key decision will be made on closing times for the event at Witney Town Council’s annual general meeting next Wednesday.

At the meeting, a councillor will submit a motion calling for all events on public land to finish by 11pm.

However, organisers of the festival – which will be held on The Leys on August 17 and 18 – want the fun fair to end at midnight on both days.

The situation is reminiscent of the lead-up to last year’s festival, which was also dominated by a battle over timings.

Town councillor Dean Temple revealed that his fellow councillor Alan Beames planned to submit a motion at next week’s AGM to push back the finishing time for events on council land from 10pm to 11pm.

The festival usually finishes later, but after last year’s event councillors voted to bring forward the standard finishing time of events on public land to 10pm.

Mr Temple said: “The council should take into account modern lifestyles and accept that asking events to end at 10pm is rather outdated.”

He suggested the proposed ‘chill-out’ period running up to 2am after the event may be able to continue as it does not need to be categorised as an event in itself.

Organisers of the festival, however, have taken issue with the proposed motion.

Although the fun fair has previously finished at 10pm, the organiser say that if it was pushed back to midnight it would improve safety.

As music ends at 11pm, the later finish for the fun fair is aimed at reducing a mass exodus.

Music festival chairman Eric Marshall said: “My old English teacher always said: ‘rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools’.

“I get that the council has to have standard templates as a reference point for events. However, when you have such a history of successful, safe delivery of events like the Witney Music Festival, this surely defines the standard to which this specific event should be judged.”

Mr Marshall pointed out that the event was planned with professionals including Synapse Events Group and the West Oxfordshire Safety Advisory Group, which is made up of police, firefighters, the highways department and paramedics.

Mr Marshall added: “My comment to the town council is: ‘let the professionals do their job and allow the Witney Music Festival go ahead as planned this year and in years to come, so we can continue to benefit the residents of Witney and the local economy without this constant battle every year’.”

Mr Temple, however, said he did not understand why the festival organisers wanted to change the funfair time. He said that the team behind the event had long fought for an 11pm finish and added that organisers said the previous two events, at which the funfair concluded at 10pm, went ‘without a hitch’.

The finishing time of the festival is not the only thing causing problems this year. 

At a meeting of Witney Town Council last week, Bob Wilson of Bob Wilson’s Funfairs raised concerns about the festival’s fair. 
He warned councillors that the festival fair would draw people away from his fair at the Witney Feast, which his family has run for more than half a century. 

Mr Wilson said: “This will be the 775th year of that Feast fair, and that’s a rather long time. We’d like to see it again for a few more.

“In all honesty, it isn’t the easiest thing to organise. There are hundreds of people involved with the fair. It’s unique in the way it is presented and accepted by the community.”

He said that the problem was financial and that it operated within a very narrow margin of profit – losing money on wet years and gaining it back in dry years.

Mr Wilson added: “I’m not against the festival. It could be a good thing. I’m sure it is. I’m sure a lot of people enjoy it.

“But it’s come to my knowledge that a funfair goes with that festival. Now, it would always have an effect but a couple of weeks before the feast would have a major effect.”

Organisers of the festival have consistently maintained that its event is primarily a music festival and not a fun fair. They have also contested the argument that their event would have a major impact on the Feast.

At the same meeting, festival organiser and former chairman Derek West talked about the festival’s ability to bring the community together. 

The Witney Feast will run on September 10 and 11. The music festival usually runs in June but was this year been moved to August 17 and 18 to avoid clashing with repairs to land.

The council will meet at 7pm on Wednesday.