Surge in festivals after Covid lull risks making green spaces elitist as councils try to offset tightened budgets
Cash-strapped councils are increasingly hiring out their green spaces to festivals, experts have warned, blocking them off from residents for weeks at a time, damaging grass and causing congestion.
Councils, they said, were “more desperate than ever” to attract commercial income to supplement their reduced budgets after a pandemic hiatus, risking making public parks “more exclusive and more elitist” in the process.