A free summer music festival has been cancelled at the last minute after organisers were told they did not have the right licences in place to go ahead.
EH32 Live was due to kick off at Cockenzie House and Garden s, East Lothian, on Saturday (June 10) but devastated organisers took to social media this week to announce it had been scrapped.
They have now lodged a petition to save the festival claiming East Lothian Council pulled the plug because of "a small number of complaints and the class of use of the gardens".
READ MORE: East Lothian music festival approved despite complaints over noise, drugs and swearing
However the local authority has said organisers did not apply for a public entertainment licence in time and, as a result, no events can take place until it is approved.
The festival, which has been running at Cockenzie since the summer of 2021 was initially launched during Covid restrictions as a safe space for people to meet outdoors and see live music for free.
Organisers say: "We are a family and dog friendly event which runs almost every Saturday and Sunday of the summer in Cockenzie House gardens. We have a fully licensed bar and have 2 live music acts per day."
At a recent meeting of East Lothian Licensing Board the festival was granted a licence to sell alcohol despite complaints from a neighbour about the noise, swearing by one band and drug use.
Organisers agreed to have stewards onsite to monitor behaviour and said the band who had used foul language were removed from the festival.
A spokesperson for East Lothian Council said despite having the drinks licence, the festival had not submitted the application for the public entertainments licence in time.
They said: "We have been liaising with the organisers for a number of months to try to help ensure their planned events had all necessary permissions in place.
"Unfortunately, the relevant applications for the music events have only been submitted by the organisers in the past few weeks. They require to have in place the appropriate public entertainment licence, planning consent and a licence to sell alcohol.
"To progress this, the organisers need to finalise their public entertainment licence application. The statutory consultation period for this would end on June 27th.
"The council would then need to seek to organise a special meeting of the licensing sub committee to determine whether to approve the application.
"We are aware the festival was due to take place over the course of 12 weekends. If approved later this month, the organisers may be able to continue with some of their planned programme.”
A petition to save the festival has been signed by more than 1,000 people and is online at change.org
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