Buskers react to plans which would make them buy permits and move constantly during the day as former top PSNI man says rules are 'draconian'

Melissa Brown, a 20-year-old singer from Newtownards, was giving her take on the plans by the council to make performers who use amplification pay for a permit, which would then restrict where they could go and for how long.

Meanwhile on Friday former senior PSNI man Jon Burrows described the proposed rules, which will also apply to preachers and protestors, as “draconian”.

The News Letter has been reporting on the plans throughout the week, and Stephen Nolan has devoted three of his consecutive morning shows on Radio Ulster to the plans.

In short, here is what they would mean.

• The city is to be divided into two zones: the wider “city centre” (defined as a huge area running from the SSE Arena to the City Hospital), and the “primary retail core” (basically the main shopping streets).
• If you want to use an amplification device to perform in the wider “city centre”, you must buy a permit, the cost of which is as yet unknown.
• Likewise if you want to protest or preach in the “primary retail core”, or if you want to set up a “stand, stall, or vehicle with promotional literature or information” there.
• Permits will only be valid between 11am and 11pm.
• Permit holders can preach or protest for up to two hours, after which they must pack up their things, move to a new location at least 100 metres away, and begin again from there.
• For anyone wishing to “perform” within the “primary retail core”, they will be limited to just one hour before they have to move.
• It is not yet clear who will decide to grant permits – whether it will be a council employee or elected councillors. If the latter, it could potentially give Sinn Fein (as the largest party on the council) a veto over who is allowed to say what in the city centre.
• The council can also impose unspecified “conditions” on permit holders.

The plans are out to consultation right now.

The council says they are needed because of “issues” it has encountered with “loud busking” and “religious preaching” as well as “ the display of graphic imagery” (the latter being a veiled reference to anti-abortion protestors, whose materials sometimes show what the abortion process looks like).

The SDLP and Alliance are strongly behind the plans, which they say will make the city “welcoming”.

But free speech campaigners argue the new rules are designed specifically to clamp down certain types of views - particularly those of Christians – in the name of “inclusivity”.

The News Letter found a trio of street performers in Belfast on Friday, and asked them about the plans.

Miss Brown was singing cover songs using a microphone and a backing track played through an amplifier next to Victoria Square shopping centre.

She told the News Letter she wants to pursue a career in music, and the busking is helping her save towards that.

"I’ve got a part-time job, but it just doesn’t bring in enough,” she said, adding that it is possible to make £40 or so in an hour by performing on the street.

A permit system could stop buskers “who aren’t really that serious about music” detracting from those who use it to make a living.

But she also said it would take 15 minutes to pack up her kit and move every hour, and another 15 to set it up in another location.

Since “you only make money if you’re performing,” having to do that once every hour means “taking time out of your job”.

On Royal Avenue, singer and guitarist Stevie Conlan, 39 and from Dungannon, was playing through an amplifier.

“I don’t know why it needs to change,” he told the News Letter.

"Anybody I’ve heard complaining is complaining about the preachers.

"Don’t get me wrong – there are some buskers who play too loud. But I don't want it to happen; I’d like it to stay the same.

"And to pack up and move? I’m a working musician. To pack up every hour, you’re going to lose wages.”

Also on Royal Avenue was Romanian out-of-work builder Marius Drutca, 40, making sculptures out sand.

It is not wholly clear if the permit rules would apply to him, but it appears unlikely since he has neither a stand nor amplifier.

He has done this artwork in Dublin recently, and described the city as “very uncivilized, very rough” compared to Belfast.

If a permit system comes in for Belfast he expects it to cost about £100 per year, so “ I’ll get it if I need to” – but since he does not have a National Insurance number, “I’m not sure they’ll give it to me”.

Meanwhile on the Nolan Show, Jon Burrows added his voice to the raft of people concerned about the impact of the plan on freedom of speech.

The former head of the PSNI’s disciplinary unit, who served for 10 years in Londonderry – three of them as its area commander – said the plan “is subject to mission creep even before the mission has even begun”.

"We keep hearing from the proposers of this it is about amplification, about graphic images, but as you’ve pointed out it is far broader, and what you’re seeing is fundamental freedoms and rights being regulated by the council through bye-laws.

"Frankly, the proposal would give them powers that would make the PSNI and Parades Commission blush, because even the Parades Commission doesn’t have the power to actually prohibit things: it can only put restrictions on things.

"So these are quite draconian restrictions on fundamental freedoms.”