A full review of Dreamland’s premises licence held today (July 24) has amended the licence to include new conditions.
The review was carried out at a meeting of Thanet council’s Licensing Sub-Committee and included input from Kent Police, council licensing and environmental health, Dreamland and Arlington resident John Moss as well as submissions from Southeastern and British Transport Police.
The review was requested by Kent Police, following the death of teenager Emily Stokes – who had been attending a Worried About Henry event at the park on June 29 – and 21 other under 18s at the gig taken to hospital with one in a medically induced coma.
Kent Police requested the full review following interim measures being put in place on July 9 which included the cancellation of all drum and bass events, increased security staff and all under 18’s to be accompanied by an adult 25 years and over.
Seventeen-year-old Emily was declared dead at QEQM Hospital at 5.58pm on Saturday 29 June following a suspected MDMA overdose.
The tragedy prompted police to declare a major incident, undertake an investigation and request the five interim measures followed by a full review.
Sands Heritage Ltd (“SHL”) are the premises licence holders for Dreamland. The owners of the park are now Live Nation subsidiary LN-Gaiety.
They were represented at the meeting by barrister Philip Kolvin and had put forward a list of proposed conditions which had been discussed with police and Thanet council.
A submission from SHL said operations director Shane Guy has handed over CCTV footage “showing Emily removing a bag of what appeared to be drug pills concealed in her bra and swallowing a pill and handing drugs to two of her friends. She was found in an intoxicated state, and told medical staff that she had also taken a pill before entering the site. She was transported to hospital, but sadly died.”
The submission added: “ A large number of people were taken to hospital with drug intoxication. It is not known whether all were intoxicated with the same substances or where the supplies took place. It is a fair inference that a seriously harmful batch was in circulation in Margate or further afield on the day of the event.
“Following a fatality SHL regard it as entirely fair for the Police to have brought this review, so as to enable the licensing authority to satisfy itself that appropriate and proportionate measures are being taken to avoid similar incidents in the future.”
The conditions include creating a formal Safety Advisory Group to discuss and advise on events at Dreamland including scrutiny of Event Management Plans.
There are detailed conditions regarding drugs, age verification, security and stewarding, medical facilities and noise. These include training for all security and stewarding staff including training for age verification, how to identify fake ID and how to use identification scanners.
Events classed as high risk will be 18+ with no admittance to those under 18 except with the written permission of the police or licensing
authority.
Kent Police was not requesting the Dreamland licence be revoked but was instead asking for the additional conditions.
In light of a number of noise complaints conditions also include the requirement for sound management reports to be made available to Environmental Health within 7 days of all music events and sound level meter UKAS calibration certificates to be submitted to Environmental Health every two years
Decision for conditions
The decision of the Sub-Committee was to amend the licence to include the agreed conditions plus an additional condition that “event management will have to specifically cover boundary security.”
A submission from Southeastern, Network Rail Southern Region and British Transport Police had outlined concerns including incidents of trespass and disorder onto the railway, creating significant safety concerns.
Their letter said there had been numerous trespass incidents on the rail network at Margate station during and after Dreamland events with youths climbing over scaffolding, scaling the fences of businesses that back onto the railway, climbing onto bins of local flats and over private fencing and low walls.
It added: “An estimated 40 youths accessed the track during the day, putting their lives at risk from electrocution or being hit by a train and causing disruption across the network as safety protocols were implemented. ”
A separate British Transport Police letter said Dreamland need to improve perimeter security, saying if perimeter fencing and perimeter security was more robust it would significantly disincentivize trespass along the tracks as scaling the fencing would be much more difficult.
The Sub-Committee imposes the conditions as interim measures, pending expiry of the time for appeal or the determination of any appeal.
The full Decision Notice will be published on the council’s website.
