Singers free to keep on carolling
 Carol-singers around Norfolk are free to fill the air with Christmas songs after the Government moved to clarify confusion in the region over new licensing laws on outdoor events.
The Government’s intervention follows an Eastern Daily Press story on a cancelled carol sing event by a Churches Together group outside a supermarket in Poringland near Norwich.
Organisers pulled the plug on the popular event in the belief that they needed a licence, following new licencing laws brought in on November 24.
James Purnell, the licensing minister overseeing the new law, wrote to the EDP after hearing about the cancelled event saying: “readers can ding-dong merrily on high to their hearts’ content".
"Carol singers who entertain shoppers outside a supermarket would not need to be licensed, providing the performance is incidental to the main activity, which, in this case, is people doing their Christmas shopping.”
In fact, he said, the cancelled Churches Together event at Poringland, near Norwich, would never have needed a licence, as all religious services of this type were exempt from the new law.
The only time when a licence was needed was if the event was classified as a concert – and even then only if it had been advertised as such or if tickets were being sold, added Mr Purnell.
The verdict came too late for the Poringland group, which abandoned its popular annual event just hours before it would have been staged.
Despite South Norfolk Council saying it would not act against the group, Churches Together chose to call off the service. Fr Mark Hackeson, chairman of the group, said there was not enough time to reschedule
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