[David Bennett]

STREET performers have unveiled a major day of action in a fightback against a council licensing regime.

The event in Covent Garden is billed as a reminder to the city council that public spaces can thrive without restrictive regulations.

Poet John Hegley, who began his celebrated career busking in the famous square, is among a string of acts booked for the free shows on May 11.

The day – celebrating 50 years of street performances – follows a recent decision to clamp down on acts from pitches in Leicester Square following a legal challenge brought against Westminster City Council.

Melvyn Altwarg, from the Covent Garden Street Performers Association, said: “Where Covent Garden has operated on trust and cooperation, Westminster’s top-down approach has led to breakdown and silence. Performers have left. Audiences have vanished. A vibrant culture has been boxed in and shut down. We believe a better approach is possible, one rooted in trust, experience, and shared responsibility.

“Covent Garden shows that when street performers are empowered to regulate themselves, it benefits everyone: audiences, local businesses, and the artists themselves.”

The CGSPA refused to sign up for a licensing scheme introduced by the council in 2021, choosing instead to keep the tried and tested system of self-regulation.

Peter Kolofsky, also from the CGSPA, said: “Covent Garden’s success is even more significant in the context of a growing trend: the quiet erosion of public space. This privatisation of public life often happens without consultation or visibility. Creativity and spontaneity are rep-laced by curated events and branded experiences.” He said Covent Garden’s West Piazza was a “powerful exception” to the rule, adding it has “endured not because of corporate oversight, but in spite of it.”

The CGSPA said it has been left in “limbo” following its snub of the licensing regime, and wants a written commitment from the council that it is exempt from it.

“We are grateful that for the most part Westminster Council has stepped back from enforcing restrictions and has currently agreed not to take action in order to physically enforce the licence in Covent Garden,” said CGSPA Mr Kolofsky. “But we desperately need to see that goodwill put into writing, so that performers aren’t constantly looking over their shoulders.”

In 1974 a major development in Covent Garden was stopped by a campaign from residents, traders, and activists.

A year later, performers began arriving: jugglers, magicians, acrobats, turning the newly-preserved piazza into a spontaneous stage.

“There was no insistence on legal permission, no council-dictated infrastructure, no sponsorship.

“What emerged was something rare: a public square given purpose by public use.”

“Covent Garden works because we built it,” said CGSPA spokesperson Melvyn Altwarg, “…no one had to come in with a policy document, we figured it out on the cobblestones”.

The one-day event will feature a full programme of performances from past and present artists celebrating a half-a-century of organised street theatre in the square.

It will begin with an 11-piece brass band parading, signalling the start of the day’s performances both on the West Piazza and at the nearby May Fayre and Puppet Festival in the Actors’ Church gardens. There will be “astonishing feats” of magic, acrobats, ventriloquists, jugglers, and a trampoline-meets-breakdancing double-act.

Long-standing performers like Mighty Gareth, who wowed crowds with sword-swallowing acts in the 1990s, is coming back to perform alongside his son Yann Elvis, now a chainsaw juggler.

Mr Kolofsky said: “We’re incredibly proud to celebrate this anniversary with the public and to honour everyone who’s kept the spirit of live performance alive for 50 years.”

Last week the council announced that anyone flouting the new rules in Leicester Square could face enforcement that included a fine, equipment being seized, or their licence being taken off them.

The action follows an abatement order that was issued against the council by the City of London Magistrates’ Court on March 26, following a challenge brought by Global Radio that is based in Leicester Square.

City council deputy leader Aicha Less said the authority’s priority was to explore the grounds of appeal and revisions to its busking and street entertainment licensing regime.

Speaking on that decision, she said: “This is categorically not a ban on street performers in Westminster. They are a much-loved part of our city, but we have to balance our duty to prevent disruption to residents and businesses.

“The court ruling has given us no choice, and we now have a legal obligation to act.”