Who's Really Running the Party at the Old Royal Naval College?

In the summer of 2025, something remarkable happened at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. A 10,000-capacity electronic music festival moved in. The bass from professional PA systems rippled across the Thames. VIP ticket holders were escorted into the Painted Hall, a 300-year-old baroque masterpiece by Sir James Thornhill, and used it as a backstage lounge. Nitrous oxide canisters were found on site afterward. Over six sold-out dates, 57,000 tickets were sold.

The event was called Labyrinth on the Thames. The venue is a Grade I listed building at the heart of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And the whole thing happened without planning permission.

That last fact is not speculation. A Greenwich Council planning officer confirmed it on the public record. The council said a planning application did arrive, but too late for a decision before the events took place. They chose not to enforce.

What follows is a forensic account of how a financially desperate charity, a well-connected private promoter, a council that looked the other way, and a conflicted heritage regulator created the conditions for one of the most brazen regulatory failures in recent UK heritage history. And how they plan to do it again, bigger, this summer.

The Old Royal Naval College is operated by the Greenwich Foundation, a registered charity (No. 1062519). Its charitable objects are simple: preserve the site and educate the public about its historical, architectural, and artistic importance. That's it. Preservation and education.

But the Foundation is broke. In its own written evidence to Parliament, submitted to the DCMS Select Committee, it described its financial position as "precarious." It filed a Serious Incident Report with the Charity Commission over the state of its roofs. It needs an estimated GBP 30 million for roof repairs over the next 10 to 20 years. Another GBP 2 million for Thames foreshore erosion works. Conservation costs run to GBP 1 million a year. Government grants have collapsed to just 5% of income.

In this context, Labyrinth is not a nice-to-have. It is existential. Our analysis estimates the festival contributes GBP 500,000 to GBP 1 million annually to the Foundation. Against a GBP 910,000 deficit in 2025, that revenue is the difference between survival and insolvency.

The event operates through a three-entity structure that disperses liability while concentrating commercial benefit. Understanding who sits where, and who controls what, is essential to understanding how accountability evaporates.

Note the gap: the Greenwich Foundation provides the venue and receives revenue, but is not the licence holder and does not appear on the premises licence. Labyrinth Festivals Ltd holds the licence, but delegates on-site delivery to The Fair. If something goes wrong, who is responsible? The charity says it's the promoter. The promoter says it's the operator. The operator says it's the venue's decision. This is liability by design.

Every decision in this chain was made by specific individuals. Here is who they are and what role they played.

The Royal Borough of Greenwich has its own questions to answer. A council planning officer confirmed on the public record that no planning permission was obtained for the 2025 Labyrinth events. The council then chose not to take enforcement action, noting that a premises licence was in place.

But a premises licence is not planning permission. The Licensing Act 2003 and the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 are entirely separate legal regimes. A premises licence authorises licensable activities. It does not and cannot authorise development. The council's own officer acknowledged the planning application arrived too late. The events proceeded anyway. The council knew. And it did nothing.

Under Section 172 of the TCPA 1990, the council has the power to issue enforcement notices where there has been a breach of planning control. It chose not to exercise that power. That decision is discretionary, and it is now open to challenge by any interested party, via formal enforcement complaint, complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, or judicial review.

The following council officers are named in the licensing correspondence for the 2026 licence application:

The broader question for the Royal Borough of Greenwich is institutional. The planning department knew the 2025 events proceeded without permission. The licensing department subsequently granted a new, expanded licence for 2026. These are different departments, but they serve the same council. The left hand knew what the right hand was doing, and neither intervened.

Residents in the immediate vicinity of the Old Royal Naval College were not consulted before the 2025 events. The licensing process allows for public representations, but the planning process, which requires formal notification of adjacent occupiers, was never completed because the planning application arrived too late. The people who live closest to the site had no formal say.

Reports from local news outlets and public comment forums paint a consistent picture:

The 65dB noise limit, now an enforceable licence condition for 2026, was described by one acoustic consultant quoted in local reporting as "ambitious for an outdoor festival with a professional PA system." Whether that limit can realistically be met while delivering the experience Labyrinth is selling — headliners like Moby and Peggy Gou on an outdoor main stage — remains to be seen.

The Painted Hall deserves its own section because it sits at the intersection of every issue in this investigation: heritage protection, commercial exploitation, governance failure, and the gap between what the Foundation says and what it does.

Sir James Thornhill painted the Lower Hall ceiling between 1707 and 1714, and the Upper Hall between 1718 and 1726. It took him 19 years. The work is considered the finest decorative painting in England, the closest British equivalent to the Sistine Chapel. It depicts the triumph of William and Mary, the Protestant succession, and the naval power of the nation.

Between 2016 and 2019, the Painted Hall underwent a GBP 8.5 million conservation project, led by Will Palin (now a Foundation trustee). The conservation team spent years cleaning, consolidating, and restoring the 40,000 square feet of painted surface. Historic England contributed GBP 3.1 million of Heritage Lottery funding to the project. It was one of the most significant heritage conservation efforts in the UK in the last decade.

In 2025, VIP ticket holders at Labyrinth on the Thames were escorted into the Painted Hall and used it as a backstage hospitality area. Premium ticket prices for VIP packages were in the range of GBP 100 to GBP 200 per person. The space that took 19 years to paint and 3 years to restore was repurposed as a drinks lounge for festival-goers.

Will Palin, who led that conservation project, is now a Foundation trustee who has governance responsibility for the decision to allow this use. The GBP 3.1 million of public Heritage Lottery funding was awarded to protect the Painted Hall for the nation, not to create a premium hospitality venue for a private promoter. Whether this use is consistent with the conditions attached to that funding is a question Historic England and the Heritage Lottery Fund should be asking.

Under Section 55(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, "development" means the carrying out of building, engineering, mining or other operations on land, or the making of any material change in the use of any buildings or other land.

A 10,000-capacity open-air electronic music festival with staging, PA systems, crowd barriers, generator compounds, and backstage facilities is a material change of use from the site's established heritage and educational purpose. The installation of that infrastructure constitutes building or other operations on land. Both limbs of Section 55(1) are engaged.

Section 57(1) is absolute: planning permission is required for the carrying out of any development of land. There is no exemption for charities. No exemption for heritage sites. And critically, no exemption for events with a premises licence.

The Foundation's own behaviour confirms they know the planning regime is a problem. In their parliamentary evidence, they explicitly asked the government to loosen planning rules for heritage sites (Item 4 of their policy requests). You do not petition Parliament to relax planning rules if you believe you are already compliant.

The Maritime Greenwich Management Plan confirms that permitted development rights are restricted within the World Heritage Site (Section 4.1.35, GPDO Amendment No.2, 2008). No exemption is available for temporary festival infrastructure.

In November 2025, the Licensing Sub-Committee of the Royal Borough of Greenwich heard the application from Labyrinth Festivals Ltd for a new premises licence at the Old Royal Naval College. The application was submitted by Jannath Rankou (The Fair) as agent, with Matthew Phipps (TLT LLP) acting as legal representative.

The licence application was for 9,999 capacity across 8 event days in 2026 and 9 from 2027 onward. Licensable activities: sale of alcohol, regulated entertainment, and late-night refreshment. Hours sought: 12:00 to 23:00, with additional late-night refreshment to 00:30.

The council's Community Safety team, led by Daniel Bygrave, submitted representations. The key condition: a 65dB LAeq 15-minute noise limit at the nearest noise-sensitive premises. This replaced the 2025 arrangement where 65dB was described as "a target" rather than a binding condition.

42 conditions were attached to the licence. They include: noise monitoring at specified measurement points, a post-event noise report, a written event management plan, crowd management requirements, CCTV, SIA-licensed security, and a dedicated complaints line.

What the hearing did not address: whether valid planning permission exists. The licensing regime and the planning regime are separate. The Sub-Committee's jurisdiction was limited to the four licensing objectives (prevention of crime and disorder, public safety, prevention of public nuisance, protection of children from harm). Whether the events constitute lawful development was not within their remit, and nobody raised it.

In November 2025, Greenwich Council's Licensing Sub-Committee granted Labyrinth a new premises licence (No. 18546) for 8 event days in 2026 and 9 from 2027 onward. Capacity: 9,999. The 65dB noise limit, previously only "a target," is now an enforceable condition. There are 42 conditions in total.

The 2026 lineup includes Moby, Peggy Gou, The Kooks, Adriatique, and Overmono. Production is by High Scream, who worked on the Paris Olympics 2024 closing ceremony. VIP ticket holders will again get access to the Painted Hall.

Whether valid planning permission exists for the 2026 events remains an open question.

Has a Heritage Impact Assessment been conducted for Labyrinth, as required by the Maritime Greenwich Management Plan? If not, why not? And if Historic England was never asked to assess the events because its CEO sat on the Foundation's board, who was protecting the site?

Has Duncan Wilson formally recused himself from all board discussions and votes relating to Labyrinth?

Does valid planning permission exist for the 2026 events? If the answer is no, the same statutory breach will recur this August.

Is the relationship between the Foundation and Labyrinth Festivals Ltd documented to the standard required by Charity Commission guidance RS2?

Why did the Royal Borough of Greenwich grant an expanded premises licence for 2026 when the planning permission question from 2025 was never formally resolved?

Does the lease from Greenwich Hospital (the Crown charity freeholder) permit this scale of commercial activity?

Was the use of the Painted Hall as VIP hospitality consistent with the conditions attached to the GBP 3.1 million Heritage Lottery Fund grant that paid for its conservation?

And the question that sits above all of them: should a 300-year-old baroque masterpiece that took years of painstaking conservation work be used as a VIP lounge for festival-goers paying premium ticket prices?

We have seen the documents. We have traced the corporate structures. We have read the Foundation's own admissions to Parliament. We have named every person in the decision chain. The facts lead to a simple conclusion: a financially desperate charity, under pressure to generate commercial revenue, has partnered with a private promoter to stage mass-scale electronic music festivals on one of the most significant heritage sites in the world, without proper planning permission, with the head of England's heritage regulator sitting on its board, with a council that chose not to enforce, and with no public Heritage Impact Assessment on record.

The 2026 events are scheduled for August. The window for accountability is now.