New classical concerts and family friendly events could be coming to Cambridge to replace the Strawberries and Creem Festival.

Event organisers said they are hoping to put on a new range of events now that the decision has been made not to bring the festival back to Cambridge.

South Cambridgeshire District Council has granted a new licence to provide more flexibility for organisers hosting events at Childerley Orchard.

Under the new licence, events will now be able to be held on weekdays, instead of just at weekends.

However, the licence still only allows for events to be held for up to eight days a year between May 1 and September 30, and a day break is required after a four day event, meaning it will not be possible to hold events for eight days in a row.

Harry Feigen, managing director of Proud Events, the production agency which has been running the events at the farm for the last three years, said they had applied for the new licence on behalf of S&C Productions.

He told councillors at a licensing sub-committee this week (December 14) that a new licence would allow them to be more flexible in what events they host.

Mr Feigen said: “We already hold a premises licence for two festivals that take place in the summer period and we have been involved as the production company operating the festivals for the last three years.

“The reason we are applying for a new licence is because traditionally we have used the premises licence to host two festivals.

“The Strawberries and Creem Festival has made the decision not to return to Cambridge.

“We have taken that opportunity to revise licence conditions and are looking to introduce potential concerts in place of the Strawberries and Creem Festival.

“The main thing is to open up the chance to hold concerts on a weekday, for example holding a classical concert, we want to be more flexible about when they take place, so rather than a Saturday it could take place Tuesday.”

Mr Feigen said The Cambridge Club Festival is due to continue and would also be covered by the new licence.

He said the new licence also “strengthened” the conditions around restricting the noise from events, and said they would be reducing the potential capacity from 24,999 people to 19,999.

Mr Feigen said 19,999 was still an “overestimate”, as he said they had never held an event that saw more than 12,000 people attend.

Concerns had been raised by some members of the public about the new licence, including raising issues about noise, and the potential for anti-social behaviour.

Mr Feigen stressed that the new licence strengthened conditions around restricting noise and said they had not breached any of the existing conditions at previous events.

Licensing officers confirmed they had received “very limited complaints” about noise from events held at the site.

Mr Feigen said they also had “robust” systems in place to deal with any anti-social behaviour, including an on-site security team and a separate team at the railway station to make sure there were no “spill over issues”.

He also said they had worked with environmental health officers to set the conditions and highlighted that they and the police had not raised any concerns about the new licence.

Mr Feigen said: “We are not asking for anything more than what we have, we are just asking for a different format of the days, that is the key change.

“We are a very experienced production company and have run five festivals in these spaces for the last three years with no complaints and incidents minimal.

“Strawberries and Creem Festival is moving on from Cambridge. Putting on more family friendly festivals will be giving back to people in our view.

“We have never breached a licensing condition, we have a good relationship with the responsible authorities, which we will continue to have.”

After considering the application in private, the sub-committee announced it had decided to grant the new licence.

The chair, Councillor Peter Sandford, said: “I hope the event goes smoothly and you have a lot of people attend.”