A east London council has raised no objection to All Points East festival promoter occupying Victoria Park for up to 75 days each year, despite growing local opposition.
Promoter AEG Presents is seeking planning permission to use substantial sections of the grounds for music festivals All Points East and Lido – which was pared-back this year to allow the parkland to recover – and the community-focused In The Neighbourhood event.
Council Response
Tower Hamlets Council manages the site, but the neighbouring borough of Hackney borders it directly to the north. Green-led Hackney Council has said it does not object to AEG’s plans, even though community groups and a local MP have pushed back against the application.
Since its inception in 2018, All Points East has drawn household names as headliners, including Gorillaz, Mumford & Sons, Deftones and The Stokes. It took place between August 21-30 this year, with six separate events held in that period.
Festival Opposition
Lido Festival, which debuted last year with headliners that included Massive Attack, Charli xcx and London Grammar, was scaled down to a one-day event, held on the August bank holiday, after being spread across two weekends in 2025.
Opposition has been growing within the capital’s communities to the closure of large sections of London’s parks for summer festivals. Hyde Park and Finsbury Park were among those to also hold major festivals and music events this summer. Cash-strapped local authorities have previously defended approving such applications, arguing it is a way of boosting their strained budgets.
AEG Presents wants planning permission to use Victoria Park for up to 75 days a year – including time setting up and taking down the festival sites – for the next six years. The application to Tower Hamlets Council has attracted backlash, including from Victoria Park Community Association, over the length of time the festivals would occupy the park and the amount of space they would take up.
Community Concerns
Association chair Mary Pimm told BBC Radio 2 earlier this year that the festivals “block off a huge part of the park that people can’t use”. Uma Kumaran, the Labour MP for Stratford and Bow, told a local news website last week that 75 days would be “too much time” to take up during the summer. She said: “In the midst of a climate crisis, and during the summer holidays when not every family can afford holidays abroad, the park is as vital to our community as it has ever been.”
Sports England and Historic England also raised similar concerns in their responses to a council consultation on the AEG Events planning application. However, in a response made visible on Tower Hamlets Council’s planning website on October 28, Hackney Council’s planning department said it had “no objection” to the promoter having access to the site for more than two-months of the year.
Planning Details
Tower Hamlets is yet to make a decision. Previously, organisers did not apply for planning permission, as both festival bodies and local councils operated under the belief that it was not necessary. Under planning law, temporary uses of land lasting up to 28 days do not require planning permission. Councils and organisers of several festivals thought this only applied to days when the events were open to the public.
But after a legal challenge to festivals held at Brockwell Park in Lambeth, the High Court ruled last year that any occupation of public land had to include days spent setting up and taking down festival sites. AEG’s application said it intends to occupy sites in the park for up to 66 days a year. But it wants planning permission for 75 days to allow for “important flexibility, particularly with regards to delays due to inclement weather”.
The promoter has stressed that the application “does not constitute an intensification” of its previous offerings in Victoria Park. It also says there would be a “break” of at least 28 days in between All Points East and Lido festivals in which the park would be returned to public use. Under the proposals, All Points East would occupy the majority of Victoria Park’s large fields in the south and east of the site, as it has done in previous years. Lido, the smaller of the two festivals, would occupy the four fields to the south and east of the memorial drinking fountain. The application states that in future years, it hopes to run Lido as a multi-day event, as it did last year.
