The Whistable Oyster Festival is to be drastically scaled back following dozens of complaints about this year's event.

Canterbury councillors agreed on Wednesday night that the event would be subject to stringent conditions in 2017 following complaints about excessive drinking, littering and over-crowding this year.

The contract to stage the festival is to be offered on a one-year tender on a 'drastically scaled back' basis, although councillors have been warned that potential organisers may be put off by the reduced term.

Councillors were told that many of the complaints this year related to unofficial events in Whitstable timed to coincide with the festival.

A report from officers added: "The Whitstable Oyster Festival and wider activities, while demonstrating strong economic benefit has grown beyond the infrastructure of the town and may be contributing to undesirable outcomes such as antisocial behaviour."

It added: "During the course of the current contract the festival has expanded and the increase in visitor numbers, combined with the small footprint of the town has brought significant infrastructure issues.

"In addition to this, the strong commercial approach which has enabled the festival to grow has subsequently resulted in a perception locally that the festival is no longer a community event.

"This growth has been embraced by some local businesses who have seized the opportunity to organise special events or promotions within the festival period in order to capitalise on the additional visitors and marketing the town receives at this time.

"However, not all local businesses are experiencing the same economic benefits with verbal reports that the high visitor numbers are driving away local customers."

"Residents reported feeling ‘unsafe’ and repeatedly questioned the lack of police presence."

In a further development, it was decided that the Herne Bay Festival, which was launched in 1993, would not go ahead next year.Councillors heard the event had struggled to attract sufficient numbers of visitors.

Instead, funding will be made available for new community events.

Full reaction as we get it.