A SPECIAL live national BBC General Election broadcast from a Bridestowe pub has been scuppered because of police objections.
BBC Radio Four and Five Live had planned to do live coverage at Bridestowe's White Hart Inn as election results came through during the night of Thursday, June 7 and early hours of Friday, June 8.
Okehampton solicitor Clive Williamson, supporting the licence extension application at the town's magistrates court last Thursday, said: 'This is an unusual application. Obviously a general election is special in a national and local sense, but it is all the more special in this case as the BBC has decided to broadcast live from an area which has been blighted by foot and mouth.'
Mr Williamson told the magistrates a similar licence was issued to a public house in Stroud earlier this year, but was not used because the General Election date was postponed until June.
He said the BBC intended to interview local people in the pub as results came through overnight, to finish at 3am.
The court clerk told magistrates that the police, who were not represented in court, had queried the application saying 'Is it really a special occasion?'
Peter Hill, chairman of the bench, said: 'We are not prepared to grant this licence — we do not find it is special in the sense you have tried to convince us.'
Alan Owen, landlord of the White Hart, said later: 'When you listen to one political party talking about 24-hour opening it does seem rather a shame.
'I would have thought it was a special occasion, not the election but the fact that the BBC wanted to do a broadcast from this particular area — but they deemed otherwise.'
Rupert Allman, assistant editor at the BBC's Vote 2001 news unit, said he had been hoping to do something 'a little bit different' on election night.
He said: 'We were dismayed really — it's a shame.
'Unfortunately if we're not allowed to do this we will probably decamp to the rather less salubrious surroundings at Holsworthy Sports Hall, where the count is.'