A free festival billed as a replacement for the reccession-stricken Cannizaro Park event has been axed by Wimbledon Common’s conservators, after pressure from the village community.

Fears that a 50 metre licensed marquee on the common would become a hub of loutish behaviour during the tennis fortnight forced the conservators to overturn a decision made in October that granted permission for the event.

But the organisers from Wimbledon-based event management company, WPPL, claim the u-turn has cost £40,000 and deprived the community of a free event funded from a guaranteed £150,000 of private sponsorship and creating 50 temporary jobs.

The development comes three weeks after the Cannizaro Park Festival - the area’s premier cultural event - was canned due to a £50,000 shortfall of private sponsorship.

Ian Henderson, assistant managing director of WPPL, said: “It’s utterly ridiculous. The whole point of this is that the community would benefit.

"It was supposed to be a free event for everyone in Wimbledon at a time when a lot of people are struggling with the credit crunch.

“Because of the public nuisance that might be caused, the conservators have said this is not for Wimbledon but we had even arranged for a security company that’s worked at other major festivals to attend the event.”

In the wake of Cannizaro’s cancellation, local music and arts groups were being invited to perform at the four-day festival due to be held next to Rushmere pond during the first week of the tennis championships.

But the board of the Wimbledon and Putney Common Conservators reversed a decision to allow the first festival of its kind on the common in 124 years, at a meeting on Monday.

The green light had been given on the basis the event was billed as “educational” with cultural activities provided by the festival’s main sponsors - the Spanish Tourist board.

But there was public outcry when the Wimbledon Guardian reported the event was going ahead, with critics describing it as “an enormous beer tent placed on the common”.

A campaign was quickly mobilised by village residents’ associations with 27 complaints issued to the council’s licensing department and a flood of letters and phone calls to the Wimbledon and Putney Commons Conservators.

Norman Plaistow, president of the Wimbledon Society and board member of the conservators, said: “We were presented with a proposal that was supposed to offer a taste of Spain, but in fact turned out to be much more commercial than we first thought and included licensed drinking and food on sale.

“It was entirely different to what we were presented before, and if we were told first time around, we would never have said yes in the first place.

“I don’t really have sympathy for the organisers because it was put forward as an educational, community event but this is clearly commercial.”

Gordon Vincent, the conservators’ clerk and ranger added the decision was taken to prevent the commercialisation of the common and satisfy the interests of the common’s levy payers.

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