Glastonbury's double-edged attack

In a message posted on the offical website today, Glastonbury Festival have revealed that they are "separately investigating putting forward a further application to reapply for the Public Entertainment Licence for 2003" as well as appealing against the refusal of a licence at the hearing on 12th December.

Meanwhile, ITN are reporting on their website that a spokesman for Mendip District Council has confirmed that the council have already received a new application from the festival organisers. He said the application would now be sent out for consultation to organisations such as the police, before a fresh meeting - probably in early February - of the Regulatory Board, who hear the application.

Although there are no details of what might be contained within a second application, we think the most likely scenario would be a near identical application to the one granted for 2002 (so with the same total numbers of 140,000), but with the improvements already put forwards for 2003 - including much greater security measures (from both the Police and private security) outside the fence - particularly in the surrounding villages.

R.E.M. have already confirmed via their published tour dates to be playing Glastonbury next year (subject of course to obtaining a licence), and other bands hotly tipped to appear include Radiohead and the Rolling Stones (click here for the full list). We wonder if Michael Eavis didn't get enough of the three-R's at school .

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