NO2ID

This may not quite be the right Topic Tree, but we're planning our first street stall in Worcester High Street from 1100 to 1400 on Saturday December 1st.
The last such stall there (Stop the War) made front page news when it was booted out by the police, so I've just checked out what we have to do to be legal.
The council said we only had to get permission from the Town Centre Manager.
This turns out to be a "non-profit" company (called VisitWorcester) who've been hired to handle tourism etc, including the city centre.
They told me they'll charge between £25 and £75 per stall... "oh, it depends on the administrative costs... blah, blah, blah..."
The council used to charge absolute zero.
What's the experience elsewhere please?

Moderation: Moved from "Events" to "Campaigning Advice"

Suggest you find out exactly which local bye-law (if any) allows them to force you to get permission to use the public highway - assuming it is the public highway?

Here in Cambridge there's a (free) council permit you need if collecting money. Otherwise, as far as I know, no permission is required from anyone to set up a stall, and we've never had any trouble.

I've also helped on stalls in Norwich, Ipswich Bedford & King's Lynn - again, no permission required, and no problems.

I know Swindon has had problems over stall space (the council says they need liability insurance), so they just campaign on the hoof, without a stall.

Check with the town centre manager to see s/he thinks you are hiring a stall as opposed to setting one up yourself.

Make it clear that you are not a commercial venture nor a political party. They reallly shouldn't be charging you. If they continue to insist on a charge then maybe let the local paper know. Good photo opportunity, glum faces with a No2ID placard and banner and they would have to explain a little bit of what you are about so the story makes sense. Enlist the help of a local councillor (the more popular the better). Both the mayor and leader of the council are conservative and therefore perhaps more amenable to the cause. See Worcester council website.http://www.worcester.gov.uk/index.php?id=1019

Thanks for the advice... it seems the management of the centre of Worcester is legally and definitely in the hands of this "non-profit" organisation. They've just sent me nigh on 20 pages to read or fill in, plus a demand for £5 million public liability insurance. Well, someone could always slip on a leaflet... unless you're distributing them on foot... that, it seems is ok and free...
Needless to say we've already got the council in a flurry (they claim they hadn't realised this would happen for charities and campaign groups) and the media are about to have their say...
Yet again we're being buried in bureaucracy. As with the NHS, it's spawn and swarm time for quangos...

Here in Shrewsbury they're about to start fining people for handing out leaflets without permission. Litter control. Where's that entertaining Council Nazi we had a few weeks ago, to defend this nutty policy? Surely the litterers are the people who accept a leaflet only to drop it again? Free speech takes another hit...

Luke: "management" may be in the hands of this body, but parts of the town must surely be public highway... worth checking the bye-laws anyway

That's going to be from Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005, discussed here: http://forum.no2id.net/viewtopic.php?t=14004

It isn't designed as a restriction of free speech. so much as a constraint on commercial activity. Another piece of tidy-minded control to sterilise anything informal. The what's-not-licensed-is-banned mentality

Council officials may not necessarily be aware of the exclusions, but we ought to be safe, thanks to parliamentarians' sensitivity to control of political activity...

Just to round off the Worcester stall saga: we did in the end run a stall of sorts but on wheels... the council now seems to have turned a blind eye as I know both Stop the War and Amnesty are running stalls sans any cost or permission... maybe because the local MP waded in on behalf of the former, and the latter is headed by a local ex-chief planning officer... such is rural life...