AN AUGUST festival for Dorset is to go ahead – with a full licence granted for the event after police dropped their initial objection.

The We Out Here event will be taking place at Wimborne St Giles, moving from its previous home in Huntingdonshire. It is expected to attract around 18,000 people this year with 25,000 from 2024.

Dorset Police say their concerns about some aspects of the management plans for the event were alleviated after a period of mediation and consultation.

The conditions agreed include controls on the sale of alcohol; a crowd management plan; sound management; welfare and safeguarding; a medical plan; staff training and a refusals policy as well as a traffic management plan.

Agreement has also been reached over the use of a Drug Amnesty Box with arrangements made for the safe disposal of its contents as agreed with Dorset Police.

Talks are to continue with the Dorset Area of Natural Beauty Team to try and minimise the impact of the event and its effect on the area’s dark skies designation.

All of the plans will need to be updated a month before the August 9-13 event with a de-brief after the event to start preparations for 2024.

Four residents had raised concerns about the disturbance likely to be caused by the festival and the effect on the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, with four representations, including the parish council, in support of the event.

Organiser Joe Barnett said the event will bring together some of the best acts on the UK jazz scene to Dorset with other attractions to include talks and cinema, yoga and wellness activities, clothing, craft and record markets, and swimming in the lake.

“As organisers we have been running events in the UK and abroad for 20 years and have brought together a team of event professionals with a wealth of experience across large scale event production to deliver this festival,” said Mr Barnett.

The licence for the event will see live music running into Saturday and Sunday mornings until 6am with alcohol sales to stop at 4am.

A schedule submitted to Dorset Council shows live music from 2pm on Wednesday August 9th with events continuing until the early hours of Sunday 13, with most people expected to leave the site on, or before the afternoon of Monday August 14.

Residents in the area will be provided with contact details for the organisers prior to the event should there be problems.

Said the council summary of the hearing “The Dorset Council Licensing Sub-Committee accepted that the representations from members of the public expressed concerns about noise and disturbance, but felt it was significant that the Police and Environmental Protection Team were respectively satisfied that the conditions agreed between the parties would address those issues and promote the licensing objectives. The detailed plans submitted by the applicant reflected the experience and knowledge of their team and the sub-committee were satisfied that any complaints from the public would be picked up quickly and acted upon via the 24-hour help line.”

Illustration – Proposed layout for St Giles Park for the August festival.