A street party will be held in Frome town centre during the town's annual carnival after a new licence was secured.
Frome Carnival forms part of the Wessex Grand Prix circuit of Somerset carnivals, with a bright and colourful procession taking over the town centre on Saturday (September 26) from 7pm.
Frome businessman Matthew Steadman applied for a temporary event notice (TEN) to stage a street party alongside the carnival procession, with events happening throughout the day within the Westway shopping centre.
Somerset Council has now granted this licence following a virtual hearing on Thursday (September 17), adding an extra layer of celebration to the 40th anniversary of the first Wessex circuit carnival.
The street party will be based outside Ellenbray Toy Shop, located within The Old Library on Westway - which links the Market Place to the Cheese and Grain via a footbridge over the River Frome.
The event will be split into three parts, beginning with a street art and graffiti workshop run by the School of Graff, which will be open to teenagers between 13 and 18.
Between 11am and 3pm, those taking part will create a "fresh, colourful, attractive mural" on the roller shutter-blind of Ellenbray Toy Shop, with the aid of local artist Tommy Vandalist.
Those wishing to sign up to this workshop should email theschoolofgraff@outlook.com in advance.
Young people will take over for a DJ set between 3pm and 5pm, and from 5pm to 10pm a dance gathering with local DJs will be staged.
Throughout the day, an information tent will be manned by stewards, with a welfare point, opportunities to donate to the Frome Carnival Charities Association and a suggestions box for future event ideas.
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The stewards - including Mr Steadman - will be on hand throughout to ensure crowd control and prevent music from the DJ slots from becoming obnoxiously loud.
Mr Steadman has previously helped to organised the Together for Palestine concert at Wembley Stadium, the House Against Hate anti-racism rave in Trafalgar Square (which attracted more than 20,000 people) and the Notting Hill Carnival - and is currently working as part of a wider team on next year's Glastonbury Festival.
The council's licensing sub-committee east met virtually on Thursday morning (September 17) to discuss the event following objections by Avon and Somerset Constabulary.
Mr Steadman said: "The team in place to assist with this year's event are all professionals - we are volunteering, but we all work in the industry and have a lot of experience in this field.
"The police have said there is an issue raised by a neighbourhood police officer. I've got around all the local businesses, the Westway Shopping Centre's manager and the carnival committee, and no issues were raised with me.
"During last year's event, I was in hourly contact with the police to make sure everything was okay."
Councillor Simon Carswell, who chaired the hearing, raised concerns about crowd control given the limited space available to pedestrians in the area.
Mr Carswell (who represents the Street division) said: "One of the concerns might be that it's quite a narrow area that we're talking about.
"People might listen to the music and congregate. I understand there's the independent market where people normally flow through more.
"If it looks like there's too many people crowding into that area, how easy is it for you to pause the event or to ask people just to move on?"
Mr Steadman replied: "We have got four stewards, two of which will be keeping a full walkway clear - so there will always be a pedestrian access of 2.2 metres to the site of the event, which will be managed and kept clear.
"Two other stewards will be doing a clicker count of ingress and egress, which will be reported back to myself. It takes me about 20 seconds to walk that route.
"If we feel it's getting too busy, we can implement a barrier system. If we want to go a step further, we can have a 'one in, one out' policy.
"Every single person involved is local. This is about supporting local talent and giving them space to be artists."
Mr Steadman added that it was not possible to stage the event within the Cheese and Grain's car park because this area was being used by the funfair which takes place every year.
Police sergeant Adrian Kettle said he "remained concerned" about public safety and claimed that there had been "no meaningful consultation" with the police up to this point.
He added: "There appears to have been insufficient consideration for how this event interacts with the existing carnival and fair.
"There is no evidence of planning around the movement of people. The dynamics of these three events are very different, and there is a potential for conflict and an increase in public safety risk.
"Should an incident occur, attendees would be required to exit into areas which are likely to be heavily populated with carnival spectators - and depending on the time, may also be occupied by the procession itself."
Mr Steadman responded: "We could look at finishing at 9am if that would make things better.
"We are also putting on a charity event at the 23 night club [on Bath Street] which starts at 10pm - this is to disperse the crowd and give them somewhere to go."
After around 90 minutes' debate (along with a lengthy discussion in confidential session), councillors voted to grant the licence as requested.
For more information on the Frome Carnival, including the procession route and associated road closures, visit www.fromecarnival.org.uk.
The remaining carnivals in Somerset this year will take place on the following dates:
- Wellington - Saturday, September 26, 7:30pm
- Ilminster - Saturday, October 3, 7:15pm
- Chard - Saturday, October 10, 7:30pm
- Wincanton - Friday, October 16, 7:30pm
- Castle Cary - Saturday, October 17, 7pm
- Taunton - Saturday, October 17, 7pm
- Bridgwater - Saturday, November 7, 6:00pm
- Burnham-on-Sea - Monday, November 9, 7:30pm
- Weston-super-Mare - Friday, November 13, 7pm
- North Petherton - Saturday, November 14, 7pm
- Midsomer Norton - Monday, November 16, 7:30pm
- Shepton Mallet - Wednesday, November 18, 7:30pm
- Wells - Friday, November 20, 7pm
- Glastonbury - Saturday, November 21, 6:45pm
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