Council defends £250k BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend bill

Liverpool City Council has defended spending £250,000 to host BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend later this month.

The annual three-day festival will be held in Sefton Park from 23 May and is expected to attract 100,000 music fans.

Three schools nearby will close on 23 May, except for students sitting their GCSEs, while there have been complaints from residents about road closures and restricted park access.

The council's health, wellbeing and culture lead, Harry Doyle, said the money had come from its events budget and added that the festival was great PR for Liverpool.

Doyle said the city had to take part in a competitive bidding process to secure the event, which he said would have a "positive economic impact".

"The amount of visibility the city is getting - it's being mentioned on Radio 1 every 10 minutes," he said.

"Liverpool is an exciting place to live and to visit."

He cited council figures which showed that when Liverpool hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in May 2023, more than 300,000 people visited the city, boosting the local economy that month by £55m.

"This is what we get from major events like this," Doyle said.

"We saw it with Eurovision and we're very proud to be working with the BBC again."

There have been complaints from some local residents that disruption linked to the festival had started too early.

Opposition councillor Richard Kemp described the perimeter fencing for the site as "an absolute mess" and said park and road closures two weeks ahead of the event had caused problems for local residents, commuters and tourists.

"No-one says we shouldn't have nice events that portray Liverpool in a good light, but this is too far - it's too big, it's too soon, it's too ugly," the Liberal Democrat politician added.

Responding to complaints about the perimeter fencing, Doyle said it was a requirement from Martyn's Law, introduced last month, to improve security to counter the threat of terror attacks.

"We have to have a perimeter fence to keep people not only within the event, but also outside the event, safe," he explained.

"It's a huge event. It's a huge coup for the city. We are getting lots of attention, lots of young people in the city are excited."

The event is the only music festival taking place in Sefton Park this year after the annual Africa Oye event announced it would skip a year due to rising costs.

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