A two-day music festival is returning to a South London park this summer, after the plans were approved. Country in the Common will be held in Tooting Common over one weekend on July 5 and 6.
The family-friendly festival launched last year as London’s “first outdoor celebration of country, roots and blues music”. It will host live music, line dancing, rodeo bull riding, axe throwing and lasso lessons when it returns to the park on a larger scale this summer.
Festivalgoers will also be able to enjoy barbecue food, craft beer, whiskey and a silent disco. Tickets are yet to go on sale.
Wandsworth Council granted contractor Enable Leisure and Culture a two-day licence to repeat the event this year, after a hearing on January 23. The maximum capacity of the festival will be 7,500 people a day, up from the 6,000 attendees who were allowed each day last year.
The plans received three written objections from residents, who raised concerns they would be disturbed by noise from the festival, but no objectors attended the meeting.
One couple wrote they did not want the common “used for such events as the noise carries into our home”.
Aisling Galligan, senior events producer at Enable, said the firm wanted to repeat the event as it was well-run, safe and successful last year. She said there would be robust noise and security measures in place to make sure residents were not disturbed.
The council’s licensing committee approved the plans in a new report, which said extensive conditions and management plans put forward by Enable had addressed any concerns raised.
The report said the festival last summer “was well received, had no incidents or concerns that were raised at/with the licensing sub-committee, and any learning from the event had been addressed with the responsible authorities and Enable”.
The festival will be held from 1pm to 10.30pm on July 5, and from 1pm to 10pm on July 6. More details will be revealed in due course, including performers.
