Community groups fear revised policy to charge for public events will be forced through without consultation

Harrow Council published a draft of its new events policy which set out a fee structure for events held in parks, open spaces and highways in the borough for consultation in November.

But residents' associations and volunteers said the charges would be the end of popular events such as summer bandstand concerts, Remembrance Day parades and St George's Day celebrations.

Harrow Council have revised the policy, but refuse to share the changes until after a cabinet meeting in February.

In a message from an officer at Harrow Council, community groups were told: "It is very difficult for me to give you the outcomes of the revised policy before it is presented to cabinet.

"I hope I can reassure you that all the responses we received have been considered and that the presentation you received at the last forum greatly influenced the revised version."

Valerie Landon, from the Pinner Association, which organises free open air band concerts in Pinner Memorial Park, voiced concerns during the consultation that the proposals would cost the group an additional £2,616 to hold four such concerts - even with the 40 per cent discount for charities.

She has not seen the revised policy.

Ms Landon said: "This means that there is now to be no consultation on the revised events policy – rather the revised policy will go straight to the Harrow Council cabinet meeting on February 18."

A Harrow Council spokesman said the policy was still being reviewed and the council could not comment on it further at this point.

At a cabinet meeting last week, Cllr Graham Henson, responsible for environment, said: "We are evaluating the responses from the consultation process and this will be coming back to cabinet in February.

"Anything that comes back from a consultation has to be checked against compliance with our legal department and for its financial implications."

A part of the council's draft policy proposed that groups who organise the events should pay for the clean up of any mess left behind.

Cllr Henson said the council needed to recover its costs and that while some events did not leave any litter, others had in the past.

But Cllr Richard Almond, representative of Pinner South, asked if the council kept records on the cost of cleaning up after public events and was told it did not.

Cllr Almond said: "How does the council know it has recovered its costs if it doesn't know what those costs are?"