The Keep Streets Live Campaign was born two years ago with a simple but vital mission to advocate for public spaces that are open to informal offerings of art and music and to seek to build positive relationships between local authorities and street performers whilst developing policies that support and sustain street culture. The campaign was a response to Liverpool Councils plans to introduce one of the most restrictive busking policies of any major UK city in July 2012 which included threats of trespass prosecutions against unlicensed buskers on the public highway, bans on under 18s and huge restrictions on where and when people could perform. Challenging their decision with creativity and passion Liverpools grassroots cultural community asked the council to work alongside them and not against them to design a policy based on preserving spontaneity and openness to public space for art and music and using dialogue and communication to resolve disputes. To their immense credit, the council listened and just two years later they have partnered with Keep Streets Live to introduce a scheme based on partnership between buskers, the council and local businesses which will make it a pioneer amongst British cities for the way it encourages and nurtures buskers. An open buskers forum will be held in Liverpool to which everybody is welcome to discuss ongoing issues. We will also meet regularly with the council to maintain positive relationships. In March 2013 the campaign successfully challenged York City Councils restrictive compulsory license scheme which required performers to apply in advance, audition and pay £40 per day if they wished to make CDs available. York Council abandoned their license scheme in response to our challenge but there is much work still to be done there to improve relationships between the council and the busking community. An open busker meeting is going to be held at El Piano, Grape Lane, YO1 7HU, in York at 6pm on Monday 14th July to discuss these issues. All who care about preserving street culture are welcome to this open meeting. Feel free to join the facebook event page and to invite friends along: https://facebook/events/264543563738841/ Lastly, our challenge to Camden Councils Cromwellian anti-culture law continues. 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 in the House of Lords. Meanwhile the Court of Appeal will consider our ongoing legal challenge on the 6th of October. We will not let this unjust and repressive law remain unchallenged. Read more here: keepstreetslive/blog/2014/07/busking-laws-and-the-lords The Keep Streets Live Campaign is part of a London mayoral taskforce with a mandate to, in the words of Boris Johnson, make the capital into the worlds most busker friendly city. We will keep you posted on all developments and have much work to do in the capital city where attitudes towards buskers are best described as medieval! Meanwhile if you have any questions or comments or want to get involved with the campaign in any way, please feel free to reply to this email. There are regional Keep Streets Live facebook groups which you are welcome to join to keep in touch with our work.
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 11:21:10 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015