Road closure change is too late for festival organiser

Tuesday 08 November 2016

Plans to make it easier and cheaper to close main roads for big Island events have come too late for the man who put on the Seaside Festival at Havre des Pas for a decade.

Infrastructure Minister Eddie Noel is pushing for a new licensing system to be in place ahead of next year's events like the Jersey Rally and the Seaside Festival.

But Mario Pirozzolo, who pulled out of organising the festival at Havre des Pas two years ago when he was asked to pay £750 so the road could be closed off for the day, says it's too late:

"I was absolutely gobsmacked that I was given this £750 bill from the Infrastructure department. I was told that's the law. It was one of these quangos.

"But that was the straw that broke the camel's back at the Seaside Festival. I was not getting any support from the States because they saw it as a commercial venture, that was fine. I said I'd do ten years, I did. For the eleventh year, I thought i just couldn't justify it when this £750 charge came in and nobody could tell me what it was for, I said you are asking for it and nobody could tell me what it was for. When I enquired which law, they couldn't tell me.

The new system will make it easier for the Infrastructure Department, the Parishes and event promoters as the Minister won't have to sign off an enabling Order every time an event is happening on the roads.

Getting a license will also be a speedier and more flexible process for event promoters who will be able to postpone events more easily if the weather is bad.

The Department says the change in the law would allow them to delegate the licensing of events on "main roads" to the Parish concerned and are currently talking to them all to find out which events could be licenced at Parish level.

At the moment it can take about 12 weeks to prepare an order and bring it into force to give event organisers a license.