Park festival will go ahead on small scale

Last year's two-day Christian rock festival featured sets from local bands before headliners The Steels played to a crowded Egerton Park on Saturday night.

Tighter restrictions mean the festival goes ahead this Sunday as a quiet, one-day celebration of Pentecost.

RDC Cllr Michael Ensor, founder of the event, said he was "disappointed" by the downsizing, but said he would return next year.

"There was no way that I felt we could have the teenage rock bands complying with the new limits," he said. "I'm particularly disappointed for the young families in Bexhill that they haven't had the event on."

It is the second major music event hit by the Rother District Council licensing team recently, after the Black Horse Festival's application to move to The Pestalozzi Village for 2010 was rejected.

A 65 decibel noise limit around Egerton Park proved the killer blow to Cllr Ensor's plans this year.

The application was heard by RDC in January, when some residents complained that Edgyfest '09 had been "unacceptably loud".

From 11am, an open-air service will be hosted by Beulah Baptist Church and led by Rev Dr Graham Holliday.

From 12noon all are invited to a picnic in the park - attended by around 400 people last year - with background music and a puppet show, and at 3pm Christian churches gather for a Pentecost service led by Rev David Frost, of Churches Together In Bexhill.

A Pentecostal birthday cake at 4pm celebrates the birth of the Christian church.

"These events are open to anyone to come and watch and join in," said Cllr Ensor. "Please bring your own picnic chair. We are also praying that the weather for the weekend is good."

He added that he intended to apply for a license alteration for music at EdgyFest '11.