Rylance supports campaign to ban festivals from park

Oscar-winning actor Sir Mark Rylance has claimed a London park has been turned into a “prison camp” by music festivals as he joins the fight to ban the events from being held there.

- TARA COBHAM

Local campaigners are arguing that a festival season called Brockwell Live – which includes Cross the Tracks, a jazz, funk and soul event, and Mighty Hoopla, an LGBT+-friendly pop weekend – is causing long-term damage to nature in Brockwell Park in south London.

In an escalating row, they have now launched legal action against Lambeth Council over its decision to allow the 125-acre park, located in Herne Hill, to be used for the festivals without planning permission.

Now Sir Mark has waded into the row, demanding the council reconsider its backing of the events as he condemned the destruction wreaked by the walls built for the festivals.

The Wolf Hall star said: “Brockwell Park is a place for people and nature. It is essential to many people’s mental health, to our joy, our healing grief. It was a gift to the local community and is held in trust for us by Lambeth.

“The imposition of high steel walls for Brockwell Live every summer destroys the park for weeks and harms the grass, trees and plant life for months — if not forever. It turns it into a prison camp.

“I fully support this campaign to legally challenge our Lambeth governors and make a new arrangement for our park. Enough is enough. Stop the walls.”