Busking Laws and the Lords

Post Date July 09, 2014
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Category Articles, Blog, Camden

Lib Dem Peer Lord Clement-Jones, a well-known supporter of live music who brought in the Live Music Act in 2012 as a private member’s bill, has proposed the effective repeal of the law underpinning Camden’s draconian busking legislation.

(Report by Hamish Birchall with additional input from Jonny Walker)

During yesterday’s 2nd Reading of the Deregulation Bill in the House of Lords, he said:

‘The Mayor of London has rightly been fulsome about the place of busking in London life. In the Bill we should explicitly remove Part 5 of the London Local Authorities Act 2000, which provides for busking licensing schemes at individual London councils’ discretion. We should also remove Section 54(14) of the Metropolitan Police Act 1839, which was recently used against buskers in Leicester Square.’

If implemented, these measures would pull the plug on Camden’s controversial borough-wide and extremely costly licence scheme (about £70k so far), and prevent buskers being arrested and detained by the police merely for doing what buskers do.

Lord Clement-Jones continued: ‘As I explained to the House [on 30th June], the King’s Parade, the winners of the mayor’s busking competition, were interrupted by the police mid-song as they performed in Leicester Square and informed that they were in breach of Section 54 of the archaic 1839 Metropolitan Police Act. They were bundled into a van by eight officers and held at Paddington police station for more than six hours. This 174-year-old piece of legislation, which also – I think the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, would be pleased by this – prohibits kite flying, sleigh riding and doorbell ringing, was used to justify the arrest.’

According to licensing lawyers, a potential criminal offence is committed by buskers under the 1839 legislation if they accept a donation or even hand out a free CD. Moreover, the police can use these powers against any busker in London – even if they are among the select few now licensed to busk in Camden (7, at the last count).

The Leicester Square day-time arrest, widely reported in the national press, took place on 14th May. It was filmed by a member of the public and posted on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjFLNjtA6uc.  No-one had complained about the band.  This particularly draconian enforcement appears to have been part of a purge of Leicester Square buskers, backed and part-funded by the Heart of London Business Improvement District. See:http://bit.ly/1xL0yd7 and note the use of noise abatement notices.

Lord Clement-Jones went on to explain the rationale for his proposals, at the same time strongly criticising Camden’s regime:

‘There are more than adequate powers under separate legislation to deal with noise nuisance and anti-social behaviour. For example, there is the Environmental Protection Act 1990 or the Control of Pollution Act 1974. There are also powers to make by-laws available to local authorities with respect to street nuisance. Camden, under the London Local Authorities Act, has banned street music at any time, amplified or unamplified, except through a special busking licence. Camden’s approach runs completely counter to the arguments heard and accepted by government and Parliament during the Live Music Act debates.’

Busking deregulation will now be formalised as amendments to the Deregulation Bill for consideration at the Lords Committee stage, for which a date has yet to be fixed but could be by October. If the amendments are approved, the Commons would then consider them.

Another important October date is the 6th when there will be a ‘permission hearing’ at the Court of Appeal for the Keep Streets Live Campaign against the High Court ruling in support of Camden’s busking licence scheme.  The Keep Streets Live Campaign is also part of a London Mayoral busking taskforce set up by Boris Johnson to make London more busker friendly.

The campaign to keep music live on the streets of Camden and protect cultural freedoms is very much on!

With love,

Jonny

Founding Director of Keep Streets Live Campaign

http://keepstreetslive.com

http://facebook.com/groups/keepstreetsliveincamden

http://facebook.com/groups/keepstreetsliveinlondon


Key links:

Greater London Authority and Mayor of London launches #Backbusking campaign 9th April:
http://bit.ly/VDwv9i
Boris Johnson warns ‘Don’t let London become a no-go area for buskers’.

Hansard transcript of Deregulation Bill 2nd reading, 7th July:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201415/ldhansrd/text/140707-0002.htm [search on page for ‘busk’]

Lord Clement-Jones’ question about busking and 1839 Metropolitan Police Act in the House of Lords, 30th June:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2014-06-30a.1529.3&s=speaker%3A13517#g1529.4
Support of Mayor of London for busking quoted. Concerns about over-regulation of busking also raised by Viscount Clancarty, Baroness Hamwee and others. Government spokesperson, Baroness Williams of Trafford, is broadly supportive of busking, but mistakenly suggests it is not ‘criminalised’ when for all practical purposes it is under the 1839 MPA.

Music/Media

Music/Media
Post Date February 16, 2014
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Category Blog

The Keep Streets Live album was a project visualised by Nick Broad of The Busking Project.

It showcases a number of performers who have supported KSL campaigns across the UK over the past few years, a fabulous and diverse array of talent.

The album is hosted by our director Chester and all proceeds are donated to Keep Streets Live.

Download links:  Bandcamp iTunes/Apple Amazon Google Spotify

You can also access the album by joining KSL as a regular supporter here on Patreon

KSL SPOTIFY PLAYLIST

We have also started a KSL Spotify playlist which features music by both current buskers and those more established artists who have been known to busk in the past. If you have music you’d like to see added to the playlist please email chesteronthestreet@hotmail.com with title and artist name and I’ll get it on there.

PODCAST/YOUTUBE

A huge thank you to Clare Dowling for setting up our YouTube channel and also curating our new regular Podcast series which is also available on Apple/iTunes.

INSTAGRAM

We now have our instagram account up and running, so if you tag your busking-related posts with #KeepStreetsLive we’ll be sure to find them.

The Fighting Fund: Part Two

Post Date February 16, 2014
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Category Blog, Camden

DONATE to our campaign here

This is a follow up to a campaign that recently finished on indiegogo which you can see at this link. We are aiming to cover all of our costs for a historic High Court Challenge against one of the most draconian anti-busking laws in modern UK history which has been introduced in Camden and sets a precedent for other towns and cities in the UK.  Although we believe that some policies, like Camden’s, are so restrictive they must be challenged in the courts, it is our preference wherever possible to work alongside local and national government to design policies that genuinely enhance the wellbeing of our towns and cities. This campaign will help to provide us with the resources to enable us to do this effectively.

 

  • My name is Jonny Walker. I am a Liverpool-born singer/songwriter, full-time street performer and the Founding Director of the not-for-profit Keep Streets Live Campaign. Our mission is to protect and promote public space as a legitimate forum for informal performances of art and music in the face of laws and policies that marginalise and criminalise the ancient tradition of street art and performance.
  • What are we protecting? A spontaneous and vibrant street culture brings life to our towns and cities. It helps create urban community and a unique sense of place at a time when our high streets are all too often populated by the same chain stores and characterised by uniformity. Despite this, hundreds of local authorities across the UK have introduced heavy handed restrictions that discourage people from performing art and music on the streets and often result in town centres which are desolate and devoid of colour. We want to stop that happening, not only in Camden, but anywhere else in the UK!

 

  • Our vision is to see towns and cities across the UK embrace grassroots street culture and to adopt policies that are supportive of informal performances of art and music. We want to help local authorities across the country to treat street entertainment as a fantastic opportunity to bring life and colour to our communities rather than as a problem that needs to be legislated against. Existing legislation against noise nuisance, obstruction and antisocial behaviour is more than adequate to deal with any problems that arise from busking.
  • Whilst we will always be prepared to challenge policies and attitudes that undermine or threaten a vibrant and spontaneous street culture, we will always be willing to work alongside local authorities to help them create genuine opportunities for cooperation and working together for the good of everybody. We passionately believe in culture as a means to human flourishing!
What have we done so far?

 

  • Last year in Liverpool, a city synonymous with live music, I helped lead a campaign against a license scheme similar to Camden’s which threatened street musicians with trespass prosecutions, banned under 18s from playing music and placed severe restrictions on the life of the streets. Our campaign was successful and the new law was overturned. We are now working with Liverpool Council and the Musician’s Union to draw together a fair and open ‘best practise guide’ for street performing that balances the needs of all the users who share public spaces. We aim to create a ‘best practise’ template for street culture which can easily be adapted to the needs and contexts of other towns and cities across the UK and beyond.
  • In York we set up a petition calling on the Council to scrap a highly restrictive license schemeand to make the streets more open. Again, as a direct result of our campaign, York’s civic leaders made significant changes to their policy and invited musicians, street performers and other bodies to be part of an ongoing dialogue.
  • In Camden we have set up a petition signed by over 6800 people and counting. We have engaged with local councillors to communicate the importance of a vibrant and spontaneous street culture. With one exception every Liberal Democrat, Conservative and Green Councillor voted against Camden’s new anti-busking law. We had well-attended ‘protest busks’ and created the ‘Citizen’s Kazoo Orchestra’ to highlight the absurdity of musician’s having their instruments seized by the council or the police.
  • Our High Court challenge aims to overturn the unjust law that Camden have introduced. Once that has happened we hope that the Council will choose to work alongside us to introduce a new policy that works for the good of everyone!

  • Why We Need Your Help

    We are challenging a local authority with a budget of hundreds of millions and we are a tiny grassroots organisation. The court has recognised this and granted us a protective costs order of £7500 which is the maximum amount we will have to pay whatever the outcome of our case.
    Our first indiegogo campaign raised a headline figure of £7575 but that is not the final amount that we are able to hold in reserve for our legal challenge.
    Firstly, because our first campaign didn’t reach its initial target (Set at £25,000, before we were granted a protective cost order) indiegogo deduct 9% from our campaign fund as their fee which was £681.75.
    Secondly, we wanted to set up the Keep Streets Live Campaign as a not for profit organisation with a written constitution and defined mission to protect street culture. We employed Wrigley’s Solicitors in Leeds, specialist charity’s lawyers, to write our constitution and articles of association so that we would have a formal structure for the work we plan to do and this cost £600.

    Thirdly, we had to pay for the making of two ‘pitch’ videos for the campaign, as well as the design, manufacture and postage of the perks (badges, post-cards, prints and t-shirts) that we are offering in return for donations. In addition, our some of our perks (Such as the fund-raising dinner) have underlying costs that we need to cover before putting the donation towards our fund. Taken together these campaign costs amount to approximately £1100 for the last campaign.

    £7575 – £681.75 – £600 – £1100 = £5193 left

    So we have a further £2307 in order to raise our target figure of £7500. That is why we have set up this second campaign. We have set the target figure at £2700 to reflect the fact that indiegogo will charge us 4% if we reach our target and 9% if we don’t, and to cover the future costs of producing perks to send out to people (or, in the case of the fund-raising dinner, to feed people!). We’ve got lots of great perks left over from the last campaign, and with new ones still to be announced are confident of hitting our new target!

    If we win our case, the money raised will be used to resource our newly founded not for profit organisation as we seek to implement positive policies in other towns and cities across the UK and also to make a discretionary payment to our legal team who have been acting on our behalf on a conditional fee arrangement (no upfront cost).

    If our case is unsuccessful at this stage we have the choice of appeal and have a court guarantee that our legal costs will not exceed £7500. Your contributions will safeguard us for this eventuality.

     

    Other Ways You Can Help

    We have been delighted that over 300 people contributed to our last campaign. The support of people from across the world has been a source of tremendous encouragement…thank you!

    We are a growing community of artists, performers, musicians and people who value public spaces that are open to the creative arts. Even if you are unable to contribute financially at this time, we would still love for you to get involved.

    Contact me on jonnywalker@me.com to find out how!

    Join with us as we seek to protect and preserve the ancient freedoms of the street and find creative ways to build urban community and to Keep Streets Live!

    Join our Facebook Group and follow our page

    https://www.facebook.com/groups/keepstreetslivecamden

    https://www.facebook.com/KeepStreetsLive

    http://keepstreetslive.com