The Wardman Wire

Tags: Tags: Camden, English Heritage, Golden Goose, Hampstead Heath, Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood House

[tags] Tags: Camden, English Heritage, Golden Goose, Hampstead Heath, Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood House [/tags]

English Heritage has cancelled its Kenwood House evening concert series for 2007. Some in the Metropolitan media are getting distinctly snotty.

Thomas Sutcliffe, the Independent’s “Pandora”, gets straight on his high horse:

“In one pan of the scales we have one of London’s most benign amusements, occasions that give pleasure to thousands … In the other pan, we have a handful of ratepayers who find it inconvenient to have people park outside their houses for 10 nights of the year, and who find the sound of Mozart so nerve-shredding that it induces ‘misery’ “.

Hmmmm. There were 38 objections from locals. Any local authority knows that that will represent at least 10 times as many people.

Poor, downtrodden, English Heritage even have an online petition.

It sounds to me more as if a cash-cow has been killed by over-milking.

Hershellan has an account from a regular attendee:

“No music on a summers evening at Kenwood this year. Well I can’t say I mind too much, over the past few years the summer concerts have become just big noisy overblown events that we no longer attend.”

I lived off the South Side of Hampstead Heath for several years from 2001, about half a mile from the site of the Kenwood concerts, and on occasion there was disturbance from loud music, but more interference from firework displays running in the late evening.

In previous years there was an implicit accommodation with the locals where it was possible to take a picnic and sit outside the concert fence with background music. This became impossible as the fences were made wider to compel everyone to attend officially, and local tolerance waned.

To quote Hershellan again:

“Then, some years ago, English Heritage took over the management of Kenwood House and its grounds. Tents selling various overpriced drinks started appearing on either side of the grassy slope where most people sat and picnicked. The ticket prices went up steeply. The concerts started to have fireworks more frequently. From being concerts of classical or chamber music with the occasional foray into opera or jazz, they became more populist … Corporate Hospitality tents sprang up to enable businesses to entertain their clients at the concerts.”

I think is quite clear. English Heritage had a golden goose and force fed it to death.

They should stop whinging, learn their lesson, increase their efficiency and hope for a second chance.