Gunnersbury Park festivals: bid cut to 19 days a year to 2031

The company that runs Gunnersbury Park has trimmed its request for a five-year blanket permission for concerts and festivals from 22 live event days a year to 19, after Hounslow’s planning committee declined to decide the application on 6 August. The revised description, “up to 19 live event days per calendar year, with a total of 115 days including set-up, inactive and removal days, and trackway”, was logged on Ealing Council’s planning register as consultation 263099CONS on 12 August, because the park sits on the borough boundary and Ealing is a statutory consultee. Hounslow decides it; Ealing residents on Popes Lane, in Ealing Common and around Acton Town live with it.

The application, Hounslow reference P/2025/3274, would cover 1 January 2027 to 31 December 2031. Nothing in it changes what happens in the park this summer: the permission would not start until 1 January 2027.

What the application asks for

The detail below comes from the Hounslow planning officers’ committee report for 6 August and its addendum, which describe the 22-day version councillors saw. The 19-day revision has not yet been published with its own papers, so where the numbers below may have moved we say so.

• Where: two arenas, “Arena 1” on the Old Cricket Pitches and “Arena 2” on the South Playing Fields, each between 7.4 and 8.8 hectares. Only one arena is used at a time. Including “lower use” spill areas, events would take no more than 13 per cent of the park (14.5 per cent once the ponds are excluded). The park stays open outside the fence.
• How many days: the version councillors saw allowed 22 live event days a year, inside a 115-day envelope for build, dark days and removal. The 12 August revision reduces the live days to 19 and keeps the 115-day envelope. Trackway and fencing that stays up between events is not counted in the 115 days, though the addendum promises two stewarded crossing points through it.
• How big: up to 10 days a year for crowds of 20,000 to 29,999 (“Band 1”), the rest for 3,500 to 19,999 (“Band 2”). Whether the 10 Band 1 days survive the cut to 19 is not stated on the register.
• How loud: off-site limits of 73 dB(A) and 88 dB(C) for Band 1 events, 70 dB(A) and 85 dB(C) for Band 2, measured at four fixed monitors on Lionel Road North, Popes Lane, Manor Gardens and Park View Apartments, with up to three more placed per event. Officers point out that the park’s premises licence, reviewed in March 2026, already allows 40 live days a year at 75 dB(A) and full 29,999 capacity, so the planning limits are tighter.
• When: typical stage closing time 10.30pm Monday to Saturday and 10pm on Sundays, bars closed at 10pm. The application sets no opening time; the licence allows music from 9am.
• Getting there: billed as a public transport event with no public parking. Officers name Acton Town, Gunnersbury and Ealing Broadway stations as the walking routes, and note that Popes Lane, where build lorries would enter by the Blue Gate, is Ealing’s highway, maintained by Ealing, with any bay suspensions or closures needing Ealing Parking Services’ permission.

Who said what

Hounslow ran two rounds of consultation. The first, on the original ten-year, 28-day scheme, went to 3,523 neighbours plus the Friends of Gunnersbury Park and Museum and five other groups on 27 November 2025, and drew 361 objections from 373 people or organisations, including Andy Slaughter MP and four Hounslow councillors, against 15 letters of support. The second round, on the five-year, 22-day scheme, was notified on 12 June 2026 and drew 141 objections from 147 people, 6 supports and 1 neutral comment, with a further 5 objections and 1 support arriving after the report was written.

The objections officers summarised will be familiar to anyone who lives within earshot: bass carrying into homes with windows shut in the hottest weeks of the year, a five-year permission removing the annual right to object, lorries stuck on Popes Lane and Lionel Road, litter and street urination after events, and the covenant that residents say was meant to keep the park free of commercial use. Supporters cited the money the festivals put back into the park and the cultural offer for younger people.

Ealing Council, as consultee, raised no objection. Historic England did not object either, while saying the events would cause “some harm” to the Grade II* registered park and its listed buildings and asking Hounslow to weigh that against the public benefits.

The complaint figures in the report are the CIC’s own: 737 entries logged across the 2025 season from both councils, the residents’ line and event organisers, of which 664 (90 per cent) were about noise, 29 about anti-social behaviour, 19 about traffic and 8 about litter.

Why the park says it needs this

Gunnersbury Estate CIC was set up by Ealing and Hounslow councils in 2015 to run the park and museum on a 25-year agreement. The councils’ service fee has tapered from £710,000 a year to £500,000, against running costs the report puts at £2.3 million a year, and the CIC told officers that both councils’ fees could be withdrawn from 2028, leaving a 20 per cent gap. Commercial income is already more than 66 per cent of its budget, and the CIC calls live events “critical for keeping the gates open”. It says it recently failed bids to Green Roots and the National Heritage Lottery Fund, that promoters now book one to two years ahead so an annual application costs it bookings, and that a five-year permission would add “over £35 million” to the local, regional and national economies. Officers gave that economic case “substantial weight” and recommended approval with conditions.

The same report records that only 7 per cent of attendees at the 2025 summer events came from Hounslow and Ealing; 36.6 per cent came from elsewhere in London.

What happened on 6 August, and what happens next

Hounslow has not yet published minutes of the 6 August meeting, and its planning register could not be reached from our end this weekend, so the committee’s own words are not on the record we can link. What is on the record: the application was not decided that night, the Ealing Liberal Democrats’ statement of 12 August says the committee deferred it (and complains that Councillor Lakhbir Singh, for Ealing Common, was not allowed to speak against it), and the 19-day version appeared on Ealing’s register the same day. Hounslow’s next scheduled Planning Committee is Thursday 3 September at 7pm; its agenda had not been published when we checked, so we cannot yet say the revised application will be heard then.

What it means for you

• If you want to comment, comment to Hounslow, not Ealing. Ealing’s entry is a consultation record; the decision is Hounslow’s, under reference P/2025/3274, through Hounslow’s planning search. Objections in the first two rounds were counted; a new round on the 19-day version should be notified to the same neighbours, and the report notes that Hounslow accepted emailed comments when its portal errored.
• The numbers to argue about are days and decibels, not whether events happen. Both councils’ officers, Historic England and the CIC accept events in principle; the live question is 19 days a year for five years without a fresh application each time, and bass limits of 88 dB(C) rather than the licence’s figure.
• Nothing changes for 2026. This permission would start on 1 January 2027.
• Popes Lane and Ealing Common streets are the pressure points in the report’s own traffic section. If you have had a lorry blocking your drive on a build day, the report’s answer is the Safety Advisory Group monitoring the junction, and Ealing’s parking team signing off any bay suspensions. See our Ealing roadworks and travel page for the standing arrangements.
• Track the application alongside the rest of the borough’s decisions on our Ealing planning news page.

Corrections and additions to hello@ealingpost.co.uk. We will update this article when Hounslow publishes the 6 August minutes and the 19-day papers.