A Tale of Two Decisions at Sunderland Council

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After Sunderland Business Improvement District's UrbanFest, local resident Natalie Collins, asks important questions about their choice to endorse and freely distribute Red Bull energy drinks across a children's event.

As Sunderland’s 2024 summer came to an end, so did the beloved Roker eatery Cole Kitchen. In the last few years, most sunny weekends would see scores of people queuing up for The Best coffee in Sunderland, alongside freshly made brunch sandwiches, still-warm cinnamon knots, and a delicious selection of homemade cakes. For many twenty and thirty-somethings, and beyond, brunch at Cole’s became a ritual of care and rejuvenation; brought to Sunderland by a local family.

Their extremely sad demise was precipitated by a number of challenges, but the greatest was Sunderland Council’s refusal to issue them a hot food takeaway license applied for after Coronavirus Regulations lapsed. To reduce the 21 per cent higher than national average childhood obesity in Cole Kitchen’s area, the council is not approving new takeaways. It mattered not that Cole Kitchen’s open hours were during school times, during school holidays “there would be nothing to stop [children] buying takeaway food, or having it bought for them” during school times. The unfeasibility of primary-aged children turning up at Cole’s to purchase themselves a fancy Bodega Sando at five times the cost of a Greggs sausage roll was also unpersuasive to the council. After losing their license, Cole’s soldiered on, their new Papershop venture in East Boldon running their sandwich menu and the Roker shop rebranding as a deli. It simply didn’t work. The outpouring of love for Cole, in the petition signed by thousands and on their socials after they announced they would be closing is testament to just how precious this local business was to so many.

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Less than a month after Coles closed, Sunderland’s Business Improvement District (BID) was running their very first UrbanFest in the city’s up and coming Sunniside Quarter. BID describes itself as a “business led, working partnership” and BID’s Directors includes Sunderland City Council’s leader, Micheal Mordey and deputy leader, Kelly Chequer, along with business leaders from Hays Travel, Holiday Inn and Greggs.

Red Bull vehicles at Sunderland UrbanFestRed Bull vehicles at Sunderland UrbanFest
Red Bull vehicles at Sunderland UrbanFest

UrbanFest billed itself as “A perfect blend of creativity, sports, and culture for teens and young adults, but fun for all ages!” A free weekend festival in Sunniside Gardens’ square featuring skateboard and BMX demonstrations and workshops, street dance performances, spray painting and Lego building. Rather than the majority of attendees being teen and young adults, the Saturday morning at least, found the majority of festival goers to be parents with children. Queues of junior school children awaited their turn to spray paint a picture, while parents with pushchairs waited for their kids crowded round a table covered with Lego; having been invited to “reimagine Sunderland”. A temporary half-pipe and skate park had been constructed in different parts of the square, with a hair braiding marquee in a row alongside a number of food stalls selling pizza, pasta, freshly made burgers, coffee and churros.

Dominating the whole space though was Red Bull. Their massive Land Rover wagon-cum-DJ booth pumped out beats, accompanied by two Red Bull mini coopers carrying massive cans of Red Bull. Cool-looking young adults had Red Bull can backpacks from which they were handing free cans of Red Bull to adults wandered around the square. A number of these adults were sharing their free age-restricted drink with their tweenage children. Fascinatingly, there is not one mention of Red Bull on BID’s UrbanFest webpage.

The first half of UrbanFest ended just as news broke of the NHS rapid review, finding that “children's health has deteriorated over the past decade, with one in three pupils in some areas leaving primary school overweight.” Earlier this year, a systematic review found an association between children’s energy drink consumption and “smoking, alcohol use, binge drinking, other substance use and the intentions to initiate these behaviours”. The review also found that “sensation-seeking and delinquent behaviours were positively associated with energy drink consumption, as were short sleep duration, poor sleep quality and low academic performance.” Alongside these, energy drink consumption was linked to an “increased risk of suicide, psychological distress, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder symptoms, depressive and panic behaviours, allergic diseases, insulin resistance, dental caries and erosive tooth wear.” A 2015 article reports that energy drink consumption can affect cardio vascular function and cause anxiety, insomnia, gastrointestinal upset, muscle twitching, restlessness, periods of inexhaustibility, acute and chronic daily headaches, ischemic stroke, epileptic seizures and hallucinations.

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Upon being approached by a festival goer (ahem, the author of this article) about why Sunderland Council were endorsing an energy drink brand at a festival for children and young adults, Sunderland Bid’s CEO, Sharon Appleby, stated that the drink was only being offered to adults and that without Red Bull, events like UrbanFest could not happen. The wider implications of normalising and glamourising energy drink consumption to children (and adults) had not been considered by anyone at BID. Parental inability to refuse their children expensive fancy food from a Roker eatery was key to denying Cole Kitchen a license. These same considerations did not feature in freely offering parents age-restricted, health-damaging drinks at a festival where their children might use “pester power” to gain access to a drink brand trendy enough to have a Transformer-esque DJ wagon onsite. BID also seemed unconcerned about enforcing the Challenge 25 scheme of ensuring consumers of age-restricted products look at least 25, given the number of children not yet halfway towards 25-years-old sauntering around the festival drinking a free can of Red Bull.

It is to be applauded that councils are taking licensing action to address childhood obesity; indeed we should all be committed to the children being the healthiest they can be. Perhaps that starts by a council reflecting on processes which have closed down a beloved, locally run, foodie business whilst facilitating a multi-national corporation flooding a children’s festival with high sugar caffeinated drinks?

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