Best Practice Busking Guides

Post Date September 24, 2014
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Category Liverpool, Uncategorized, Updates, York

Since our first success in Liverpool, we have now worked with several dozen UK councils to introduce best practice guidance for busking, applicable both to performers and the street side community of businesses and residents.

Our guidance is a system based on dialogue, mutual respect, and backed up with properly-used enforcement action where necessary. The approach is flexible, constructed involving all stakeholders, and can be adapted to suit the particular geographical and cultural needs of any given town or city.

You can find links to some of these below which can be used as reference for the specific locations, and also as a template for starting negotiations in the future.

Accrington

Bath

Birmingham

Canterbury

Carlisle

Chester

Liverpool

Worcester

York

Witness Statement For PCO

Witness Statement For PCO
Post Date December 19, 2013
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Category Uncategorized
  1.  
  2.  
  3.  
  4. IN THE QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
  5. ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
  6.  
  7. BETWEEN
  8.  
  9. KEEP STREETS LIVE CAMPAIGN LIMITED
  10. CLAIMANT
  11.  
  12. and
  13.  
  14. LONDON BOROUGH OF CAMDEN
  15. DEFENDANT
  16.  
  17.  
  18.  
  19.  
  20. Witness Statement of Jonathan Walker
  21.  
  23. I, Jonathan Walker of Director and Founder of Keep Streets Live Campaign Limited, Suite 157, 33 Great George Street, Leeds, LS1 3AJ, will SAY AS FOLLOWS:
  1. I make this statement in support of my application for a protective costs order for Keep Streets Live Campaign Limited.
  3. Personal Background
  5. I am a Liverpool-born singer songwriter, musician, political activist, and a professional street performer.
  7. I am the founding director of The Association of Street Artists and Performers (ASAP!) a community organization which exists to protect shared public space as a legitimate forum for informal and spontaneous performances of art and music by advocating for supportive public policies, and by seeking to build relationships of cooperation and mutuality between local authorities, street artists and performers and other interested parties.
  9. I am also the founding director of the Keep Streets Live Campaign Limited, a not for profit organisation set up to be a fundraising and campaigning vehicle to protect community and grassroots uses of shared public spaces.
  11. I am a volunteer citizen advocate for Leeds Advocacy a not for profit service which speaks out for people with learning difficulties, and I am a patron of the Norwich-based charity Musical Keys, which provides music and movement for children and young people with special/complex needs.
  13. I became a street performer whilst studying towards a Politics degree at Durham University and have been performing music on the streets throughout the UK and Europe ever since.
  15. I have seen the power of informal, street-level performances of art and music to create a sense of urban wellbeing, and to foster opportunities for positive encounters between people from all walks of life, at first hand.  These experiences have demonstrated to me that street performance has a significant part to play in the communal life of our towns and cities, and that supportive local authority policies have an important part to play in safeguarding grassroots culture. To that end I have helped local authorities develop policies for street performance in cities such as Liverpool and York.
  18. This Claim
  20. In August 2013 I received an email from Camden Borough Council inviting ASAP, to take part in a consultation about the Council’s plans to introduce compulsory busking licenses throughout the Borough.
  22. When I saw their proposed policy I was extremely concerned about the effect it would have on the future of street art and performance in Camden.
  24. For many young musicians and students, playing on the streets is their first taste of live performance and can provide a valuable forum for gaining experience. For others, the streets provide a platform for social interaction and confidence building at a time when many indoor venues for live music are closing because of economic and social changes.
  26. I was concerned that young people would be unable to afford the Council’s proposed license fee, and would be deterred from playing on the streets because of the formality of the license application process and the length of time required to apply. A ‘special license’ application can take up to 20 working days to process.
  28. Whatever its intentions, it was clear to me that Camden Council were on the verge of making a decision that would have an extremely adverse impact upon what is currently a vibrant and diverse street art and music scene. Their proposed policy was going to make it very difficult for people to perform in the area without threat of prosecution.
  30. I knew I had to do all I could to persuade the Council to change it proposals. I completed the consultation exercise and a copy of my response is at pages B1-B7. I also made my response available on my campaign website: http://keepstreetslive.com/policy-objections/2013/10/our-response-to-camden-councils-consultation
  32. In September 2013 I had a meeting with Tony Hawkes the Senior Licensing Officer at the Council, who developed the policy, at which I outlined my many concerns. However, he informed me that the Council wanted to implement the policy in order to address the concerns raised by residents about noise nuisance and public disorder.
  34. I began to lose hope that I would be able to change the Council’s view alone. So I set up an online petition addressed to the leader of the Council Sarah Hayward asking them to reconsider their decision and to invite professional bodies such as the Musician’s Union to work out a best practice guide for busking in a more collaborative way.
  36. The petition which I started in September has so far been signed by over 6000 people. It can be accessed via this link: http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/camden-borough-council-don-t-stop-the-music-keep-streets-live-in-camden
  38. On behalf of all the people who have so far signed the petition, as well as the 500 people registered as members with ASAP, I made three formal deputations to the Council outlining the reasons why I believed their policy to be damaging to the well being of Camden and asking them to rethink their proposals.
  40. These deputations were made at the Cabinet Meeting of October 23rd, the Licensing Committee Meeting of October 29th and the Full Council meeting of November 11th at which the Council voted to adopt the resolution with a vote of 26 for to 17 against.
  42. Throughout this period I communicated with all of Camden’s councillors and sent examples of the way in which other local authorities manage street performances without compulsory licenses and the level of restrictions Camden proposed.
  44. Specifically I sent them copies of Bournemouth’s policy and a copy of Liverpool City Council’s draft busking policy worked out in collaboration with the Musician’s Union. These policies set out a best practice guide for buskers and explain that powers can be used under existing laws to deal with performers who cause problems and can be found at pages B202-B210.
  46. In practice, these policies, similar to the majority of policies in place across the UK have proved well-suited to the oversight of busking performances.
  48. However, all these attempts to change the Council’s proposals failed and having exhausted the political avenues I turned to Leigh Day for advice about the viability of a legal challenge against Camden’s policy.
  51. As the leader of an advocacy body for street artists and performers, and the person who started a petition with over 6000 supporters, as well as a concerned citizen and former resident of Camden, I feel a moral duty to challenge Camden Council’s decision in the courts.
  53. For many visitors and residents, street music is an integral part of Camden’s cultural identity. Camden’s policy would make it extremely difficult for people to access public space for informal performances of music, especially if they were visiting for a short while. In common with many other concerned groups and individuals I believe the Council’s decision to be detrimental for the cultural and social well-being of Camden’s shared public spaces.
  55. Furthermore, Camden Council has described the character of Camden Town specifically, as follows:
  57. “Camden Town is one of London’s most well-known areas. It is home to a vibrant and diverse local community, as well as a thriving economy with a focus on music, design, creative media, arts and culture. This rich mix of activity has made Camden Town a world famous visitor destination, with over 10 million people coming to enjoy the town centre every year”.[1]
  59. My understanding is that the Court must assess the issues raised here against that background.
  61. Finances
  62.  
  63. As a self-employed musician with a young family I have very limited personal financial resources available to risk on this claim.
  65. Section regarding household income removed for data protection reasons.
  67. For this reason, there is no possibility of me being able to risk a costs order from the Council if my claim is unsuccessful.
  69. As a community group that has never charged for membership, ASAP also has no funds which it can risk on this challenge. It currently has no funds whatsoever.
  71. I knew therefore, in order to take this case forward I would have to single-handedly try to raise money towards the risks of a judicial review claim.
  73. Of course, I hoped the Council would agree to reconsider its decision in light of my letter before claim. But it has chosen not to, so these proceedings have now proved necessary.
  75. I take this claim in the name of my newly founded not for profit company, Keep Streets Live Campaign Ltd, which has started to receive donations already in order to continue with this legal challenge.
  77. To date, we have £750 in a holding account which has been collected from online donations via ASAP’s website and through fund-raising busking events.
  79. I am confident that within the next few months we will be able to raise at least £5000 from a variety of different sources. I will be approaching all the people who have signed the petition and asking them to contribute to our fund. I will be launching an internet based ‘crowd-funding’ campaign, a tool which enables members of the wider public to contribute to a cause that they wish to support. I also intend to hold a number of fund raising events at various locations across the country in the next couple of months with other musicians and buskers.
  81. The campaign has already attracted significant interest from members of the UK’s cultural community – for example, the well-known comics Mark Thomas and Bill Bailey and the musicians Billy Bragg and Jon Gomm, so I am confident that a crowd-funding campaign about this issue will gather attract interest amongst the musical and wider cultural communities in the UK.
  83. However, I don’t think I will be able to raise more than £5000 in this current economic climate.
  85. Of course, if this proves (and I certainly hope it does prove) incorrect, I will let the court and the defendants know immediately that more has been raised.
  87. Without a PCO limiting the company’s risk to £5000 at this stage, I will not be able to continue with this claim. I simply cannot afford to do so.
  89. It is for this reason that I make this application for an order limiting my liability and I hope the Court will recognise the general importance of this claim and allow it to continue.
  91. I believe the contests of this statement are true.
  93. Signed:
  95. Dated:
  98. [1] http://www.camden.gov.uk/ccm/navigation/environment/planning-and-built-environment/place-plans/camden-town/

What’s Next? Dancing In The Streets Made Illegal?

What’s Next? Dancing In The Streets Made Illegal?
Post Date December 19, 2013
Comments 0 Comments
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Category Blog, Camden, Uncategorized

Written by Philippa Morgan Walker, ASAP/KeepStreets Live Associate Director and Journalist

On the 24th of October 2013, something unusual happened in North London. A collection of people (some more well-known than others) organised a mass protest busk to oppose a heavy-handed, unimaginative street performance licence scheme that would restrict what can and can’t be done in the borough’s public space. For example, the playing of wind instruments in Camden’s public space would be a punishable offence. In an act of defiance, the humble kazoo recruited justice-loving people with a faint musical ability and formed… The Citizen’s Kazoo Orchestra!!

It’s not every day you witness 150+ people humming/blowing kazoos and generally making merry outside Camden Town tube station in unison; even more surprising is that the collective joy was not spurred on by a tipple or a pint. Musicians, buskers, artists, lovers of culture, Camden residents, disgruntled councillors and police officers fighting back smiles, congregated in the streets in the midst of the ‘consultation’ process for proposals of regulating street performance in Camden Borough. Add star Bill Bailey, activist/comedian Mark Thomas, musician Billy Bragg, the world-leading guitarist Jon Gomm and ASAP’s/Keep Streets Live Jonny Walker to the throng and you’ve got a real buzz and a honeypot for media. From playing the Citizen Kazoo Orchestra’s perfected rendition of the Star Wars ‘Death March’ to off-the-cuff performances from Bill, Billy et al, the two-hour long protest busk highlighted how essential spontaneous street culture is to London’s vibrancy.

The best stories have layers and there’s such a complex interplay of tensions between public space and residents, music lovers and haters, freedom fighters and stiff red tape, police, kazoo songs and political speeches, council officials with a weak grasp on telling the truth to rolling cameras, the slow death of the British high street, council cuts and the basic human right to sing a song on the paving stones of the UK. What a hash! I’m not a political journalist, as is blatantly obvious. I cut my teeth writing catwalk stories for VOGUE.com and discussing shoes with bags and bags with shoes for glossy magazine titles. My concern is for our high street. Up and down the country, the heart of town centres are draining of colour and streets look like clones of one another. The UK’s high streets are rapidly becoming dull and lack-lustre places where you’d rather dash through and then complete one’s shopping online, to avoid the moronic repetition of the same retailers and the craning necks of CCTV. And yet, street performers add vibrancy, value and a much-needed sense of local community to our streets.

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A good busker is like a street angel, a beacon of light and a centre of gravity for vulnerable, homeless, lonely people. And then there’s the unexpected joy of hearing a talented musician delight you with their version of ‘Fast Car’ as you whisk through another day. Busking is not begging – it’s an art form with a survival eco-system where the effective performer doesn’t go hungry. There’s a load of smart social history and cultural heritage one could pull up here but for the purpose of time, settle with this: Socrates used the street as a stage. At ASAP/Keep Streets Live we seek to lift the public perception of busking and train performers with First Aid skills, share approaches for helping the homeless and much more.

Socrates teaching Perikles and others

Socrates teaching Perikles and others

Of late, the Association of Street Artists and Performers (ASAP) and its campaigning arm, Keep Streets Live, has been hot on the campaign trial to protect the rights of buskers and street entertainers in Camden, London from what would be the UK’s most restrictive and astonishingly harsh busking license scheme that would criminalise busking outside of its barricades and codes of conduct. (Playing a flute in the street would be illegal and punishable by a £1,000 fine. If you don’t pay that fine in 28 days then the council will sell your flute. Slap! slap! Get back in line, people of the machine.) I attended a council meeting on 22nd October, 2013 at Camden Town Hall where I saw a Labour-led council approve a policy, without a genuine consultation process taking place. This policy would change the law, criminalise activities that are basic forms of human rights and make life generally more miserable for the creative community at large.

Hey, Camden Council! A consultation is when you inform, discuss and reshape affected parties, under democratic law, about proposals or changes in law you wish to make so that the just outcome is achieved. This was not the case here. 155 people (that’s right, ONLY ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FIVE PEOPLE) completed a cleverly-worded questionnaire that aimed to serve the desires of the policy makers. Buskers were framed as being the cause for petty crimes. Evidence for this insulting, naive, ludicrous and stupid claim, please! Street performance was linguistically painted as a nuisance, as antisocial behaviour and as something that police need to ‘deal’ with. The conclusive categories for this consultation lumped ‘all’ with ‘most people’ so that councillors could declare that the results of the quiz fell into favour of the policy.

FAST FORWARD TWO DAYS, Councillor Abdul Hai is quoted on BBC TV stating that 65% of Camden’s residents approve the proposed busking policy. That’s a seriously massaged statistic! I spoke to this man at the Camden Town Hall asking him if he would talk to Keep Streets Live properly and consult over this policy – an empty stutter followed my reasonable question. I watched Councillor Hai roll his eyes and arrogantly dismiss Jonny Walker’s plea for reason in the deputation. With sadness I listened from the gallery at the Town Hall as the policy gained traction amongst the cabinet on twisted points – ‘Camden’s residents cannot sleep because of repetitive nuisance busking’. All reasonable people will agree that residents have rights and that losing sleep due to anti-social behaviour is not acceptable, so pedalling the policy with this point will draw in popular support but this is a clever PR spin. The Association of Street Artists and Performers and Keep Streets Live support residents, buskers and the proper use of community space alike. The truth that isn’t being spoken here is this – there have not been anywhere near the volume of residents disturbed by buskers as the Council will have you believe. 65% of residents DO NOT support this. There have been 108 complaints in an entire year related to busking and a large portion of these ‘complaints’ are more like observations. I quote Jonny Walker in an earlier campaigning blog on the evidence:

I have conducted a through analysis of the 108 complaints received in the entire borough of Camden in the last year relating to busking.

42 separate people made one complaint in the year
5 people complained twice
3 people complained three times
3 people complained four times
1 person complained nine times
1 person complained eleven times
1 person complained fifteen times

This means that means that 56 of the 108 total complaints were made by 9 people in the entire Borough of Camden for an entire year.

Many of these complaints are spurious or seem to be complaining about the fact that a busker is there AT ALL:

Complainant 27 : ‘Busking on Camden Lock’
Complainant 25 : ‘Busking on Camden High Street’
Complainant 55: ‘Busker on Canal Tow Path on Oval Road’
Complainant 37: ‘Reporting Busking near Canal Bridge’
Complainant 17: ‘Busker – has been there a number of times – Camden Lock’
Many of these ‘complaints’ are objecting to the very presence of the busker on the street and could well reflect the prejudice of the person calling in. No account is made in the log as to whether the complaint was valid or what investigation was made. This log constitutes a very flimsy evidence base for the introduction of the policy and leaves it wide open to legal challenge. There may be a small minority of residents who feel very strongly that busking should be strictly controlled or banned altogether but is it the job of the council to mould the culture of Camden around the desires of a small group of people, or rather to keep in mind the common good and act on behalf of all who live, work and visit Camden and make it the wonderful place it is.

Councillor Abdul Hai, please tell the truth. Do not use PR spin to weave politics into the fabric of our society. We care about residents too. 220,000+ people live in Camden. 108 univestigated complaints in 365 days, in one of the busiest, noisiest and most hectic boroughs in London is rather conservative, in my humble opinion. YES, take these complaints seriously but don’t hold a megaphone to the mouthpiece of a minority, without speaking to the majority or even doing any homework on the real issues.

Keep the vibrancy in our public spaces - support grassroots culture!

Keep the vibrancy in our public spaces – support grassroots culture!

As Bill Bailey puts it, ‘Playing a kazoo in the street will be illegal if this policy goes through. It’s utter madness… Busking is part of Britain’s cultural heritage. It’s about freedom, entertainment and reaching out to community’.

What do I mean by freedom fighting, ASAP/Keep Streets Live followers? Well… If lies are softly spoken, then we will blow our kazoos louder and shout the truth out. This ain’t over until our human rights lawyer sings in the streets…

PhilippaMorganWalker.com

@PhilippamorganW