Mathew Street festival axed

Aug 2 2007 By David Higgerson

Click here to tell us what you think

Click here to read editor Mark Thomas's blog on the festival

LIVERPOOL’S world-famous Mathew Street Festival has been cancelled for health and safety reasons - just three weeks before it was due to take place.

The decision has been blamed on ‘health and safety reasons’ following a review requested by Liverpool’s Culture Company.

That review concluded that extensive regeneration work taking place in the city centre this month, and the loss of Pier Head due to work on the new canal link, had reduced Liverpool’s capacity to host the event.

More than 100,000 people from across the world attend the event, and today’s announcement comes just a week after organisers reduced the festival’s length from three days to two.

Jason Harborow, chief executive of the culture company, said the festival ‘had become a victim of its own success.’

But coming just months before the start of Capital of Culture year, critics will now ask how the Culture Company didn’t envisage these problems in advance, as the work being blamed for the cancellation has been known about for many months.

Liverpool City Council has sought to hit back first to such criticism, saying officers worked until the ‘11th hour’ to try and make sure the festival went ahead.

The authority said the advice was specific to the festival, and did not impact on the ability to host birthday celebrations and 2008 events.

The advice from consultants Capita Symonds Ltd, experts in health and safety, has been backed by Merseyside Police.

Capita’s report states that the reduction in capacity, combined with huge crowds in an open, licensed environment, means there is a significant safety risk to the public.

The detailed planning for the event, and discussions between the city council, police and safety officials, cannot fully eliminate the risk.

Chief Executive of Liverpool City Council, Colin Hilton, said: “We have been working tirelessly for months to try and make the Mathew Street Festival work in the city centre. Unfortunately, it has just not been possible to make it happen this year. We have a responsibility for the safety and welfare of every single person attending the event.

“We brought in the country’s leading experts to examine our plans, and look at the health and safety issues, and we have to take their advice. We are rightly proud of the festival, and were desperate for it to go ahead this year, but public safety must come first.”

Merseyside Police’s Assistant Chief Constable, Helen King, said: “Having had sight of the advice from the independent consultants to Liverpool Culture Company, we fully understand why they have made the decision to cancel Mathew Street festival this year. Public safety has to be the paramount consideration.”

The council said staff worked right to the 11th hour to try and produce a workable plan which could accommodate the festival in the city centre.

Extra measures this year included an extensive temporary CCTV network to monitor crowd build-up, a big increase in the number of safety stewards and the use of seven stages across the city centre to spread the density of the crowds.

The festival is the only major event for which a large area of the city centre is licensed for the sale and consumption of alcohol.

It is thought safety staff still had reservations about possible crowd safety implications, particularly in light of events in Clayton Square last year, where violence broke out while an England match was being shown on the big screen.

Colin Hilton added: “We have done everything we can to make sure the festival goes ahead and explored every possible alternative, but there comes a point where you can do no more, and this is it. Everyone is hugely disappointed it cannot go ahead.”

Jason Harborow, Chief Executive of the Liverpool Culture Company, said: “In many ways, the Mathew Street Festival has become a victim of its own success this year.

“The huge growth in the popularity of the festival, combined with the loss of the Pier Head, presented us with a massive problem.

“Unfortunately, that problem has proved to be insurmountable. We worked hard to try and find a way to stage the event in the city centre, but even after months of planning we were still not satisfied.

“As a last resort we employed national safety experts Capita Symonds to see if they could see a way through these intractable problems. Sadly, they have concluded there is still too great a risk to attempt to do so.”

“The festival has become an integral part of the city centre’s calendar of activities. We know that businesses and the public want to keep it in the city centre, and that’s why we’ve tried right until the very end to achieve that.”

The major difficulty in staging this year’s Mathew Street Festival has been the redevelopment of the Pier Head which, in recent years, has served as a focal point for the festival.

The Pier Head can accommodate up to 34,800 visitors at any one time, but visitors to this year’s festival would have to be accommodated on the city streets – many of which are also undergoing regeneration works.

The works at Pier Head include an extension to the Leeds Liverpool canal link, a replacement Mersey Ferry terminal with new visitor attraction, a new cruise liner terminal and the new Liverpool Museum.

In total, these developments will deliver £260 million of new investment, attract 1.2 million visitors each year and create almost 1,000 jobs.

For the best in-depth coverage on this breaking news story, read Friday's Liverpool Daily Post.