PLANS to stage a three evening concerts in front of an audience of around 2,000 in a Brent park are being opposed on environmental health and public safety grounds.
The Shree Swaminarayan Sidhant Sajivan Mandal London charity has applied to Brent Council for a temporary event notice (TEN) to hold the open air performance at Roe Green Park in Kingsbury Road, Kingsbury , between August 16 and 22 in connection with the opening of nearby Shree Swaminarayan Mandir.
The application states: "There will be theatre style musical that combines songs, dialogue, acting and dancing, to tell the story of Indian life in the UK that brings out moral and ethical issues and challenges in everyday life for the youth of Indian Britons.
"This is being scripted, produced and brought to the stage by the organization’s youth academy based in the local community.
"Rehearsals between 12 to 6pm (modified sound levels apart from when we are performing sound testing) and show time 7pm to 9.30pm with amplified sound."
A temporary public arena, comprising a stage with seating for 2,000, would be constructed in the southern end of the park.
The charity intends a live Indian classical orchestra band to perform amplified and a Scottish pipe band to play non-amplified, and dance performances to be carried out by visitors from the charity's international cultural academies.
The opening ceremony of the festival would take place on Tuesday August 19, the music show on Wednesday August 20, the drama show on Thursday August 21 and a dance show on Friday August 22 before a local parade in Kingsbury helps draw the temple opening celebrations to a close.
But the council's own nuisance control team and public safety team have separately objected to the granting of the TEN.
Ketan Joshi, of the nuisance control team, wrote: "It is my opinion that the site selected to host this event is unsuitable.
"The only way to effectively mitigate the noise levels would be to host the event inside a suitably designed acoustic enclosure; however, the feasibility of such a structure would be left to the discretion of the applicants."
Colin Wickes, principal public safety officer, wrote to the temple to say the objection on public safety grounds would be withdrawn if the applicants agreed to a long list of conditions being attached to the TEN including restricting attendance to 2,000.
The charity's application will be heard by on Thursday by the council's alcohol and entertainment licensing sub-committee at Brent Civic Centre in Engineers Way, Wembley.
