East Lothian music festival restrictions relaxed as venue gets go ahead for outdoor events

Cockenzie House is host to EH32 Live.

An historic East Lothian house has been given the green light to host regular music events throughout the year, despite complaints about its free summer festival.

Cockenzie House and Gardens has been granted permission to host live outdoor music events seven days a week until 8pm.

Despite this the EH32 Festival will remain under separate restrictions. The hugely popular festival came under scrutiny last summer after licensing bosses heard local residents had complained about the noise, drug use and foul language used by one band while onstage, when it was held the previous year.

East Lothian Council’s licensing sub-committee decided to restrict the weekend festival which runs from June 1 to August 31 to Saturdays only and reduced its hours.

In a change to the house’s public entertainments licence, approved this week, it was agreed the EH32 Festival can reintroduce Sunday performances after councillors were told they would be restricted to acoustic acts with ‘no drums’ and only run between 2pm and 6pm.

But while the festival itself was given restrictions, all other live music events were approved for the grounds seven days a week with outside performance to finish at 8pm and indoors events by 11pm.

Cockenzie House and Gardens is a former Jacobean home run by a charity which has, in recent years, been used to provide studios and workshops to small businesses as well as hosting private and community events in function rooms and gardens and its popular cafe.

It is surrounded by residential housing but the committee heard only one neighbour had objected to the move to extend music events to year round.

No concerns were raised by Police Scotland or the council’s licensing standards officer and the variations were approved unanimously.

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