Gather is a new arts and community base. Also does coffee. Or it is coffee with a topping of arts? Its location at Ludlow Community Hospital in the former maternity unit has been controversial since the applications for planning consent and licencing were published at the end of last year. There has been a lot of work to clarify what is proposed and to sort out the permissions. But I am satisfied that we have got it right. The premises will have a cap of 50 people at any one time. Separate permissions have restricted use of car parking spaces to 12, leaving more than 60 spaces for staff, in-patients and visitors. The NHS has allocated spaces for emergency and longer stay ambulances. Far from being the end of Ludlow Community Hospital as a few people have claimed, it is the start of regeneration in East Hamlet. Community hospitals have […]
Category: Arts and Culture
Castle events reduced after Shropshire Council says original plans will be a “public nuisance”
Shropshire Council’s Public Protection team has objected to the licence application from Future Sound to hold up to 15 days of concerts in Ludlow Castle every year. It is not against more events in the castle but wants the number reduced to eight a year. Public Protection have said that “the application for 15 events is excessive would give rise to Public Nuisance”. This morning Future Sounds accepted the reduction in the number of days and other conditions. That means that there are no plans for a public hearing into the licence application and it will be approved for eight days, along with additional restrictions on the volume of events (see below). Shropshire Council’s licencing team will still need to take account comments made by the public and a hearing could still be held in the New Year if the licencing team decides the comments warrant it. Comments to licensing@shropshire.gov.uk […]
Application made for 15 large events at Ludlow Castle over coming summers
Leeds based company Future Sound Events has applied for a licence to hold up to 15 events, each with a maximum audience of 7,000, at Ludlow Castle from 2024. Shropshire Council is consulting on the licence. Comments to licensing@shropshire.gov.uk by 21 December. Should this be approved, up to 21 days in the castle will be dedicated to ticketed events between the beginning of May and the end of September. Allowing for set up and take down time, the castle and Events Square could be closed for around one in three days over the summer season. The planned events will bring trade and entertainment to the town. They will also change the nature of our visitor economy. The castle is on the itinerary of many visitors coming to Ludlow but it will be a toss of the coin over whether they will be able to go in the castle. On the […]
Is Ludlow too posh for Rag’n’Bone man? No way!
What a weekend it has been and it is not over yet with Bastille performing tonight. The town centre has been buzzing with visitors from in and around town and much further afield. For once, the town has been buzzing with younger people, though many older people enjoyed the events also. Those who couldn’t get a ticket were jigging in the market and on Whitcliffe. Many sat out in their gardens. Maybe not on Saturday evening when the rain barely let up. There were of course, complaints about noise. Not just from the town centre, which bore the brunt of rehearsal and performance noise, but from as far away as Parys Road. There has to be a balance and I think four nights of noise to provide some of the best entertainment Ludlow has seen and a major boost to the local economy is a price worth paying.
The end of BBC local radio as we know it, including Radio Shropshire
The BBC is going ahead with its plans to radically reshape local radio. It is expected that Radio Shropshire will only broadcast in the mornings, after which programming is expected to be subregional, probably with Hereford & Worcester and Stoke. News teams will be reassembled with a greater focus on digital content. There will still be local reporters and news readers but it will inevitably become more regionally based. With only the breakfast and afternoon shows remaining, Radio Shropshire will only need a handful of presenters. Familiar voices will go and some have already indicated they will accept the inevitable. Other presenters, reporters and station managers are on tenterhooks. This is little more than the end of local radio as we know it. Coverage of local football matches is unaffected.