Reading Festival to ban campfires?

Reading Festival boss Melvin Benn was due to meet Reading West MP Martin Salter yesterday to discuss banning on-site campfires.

The MP had told BBC 6 Music that he believed the presence of campfires at the annual event posed a serious health risk.

Salter spoke of "angry mobs running around, stealing other people's tents and possessions and throwing them on the bonfires to keep the fires burning. It's a lethal cocktail, drunken young people, fires and insufficient security to deal with the situation".

He went on to say that although he is critical of the festival's fire-related hazards, he is not against the event as a whole. "I am a supporter of the festival, I want it to be a great success, but I want it to be a safe event for young people as it always used to be."

Benn and Salter have yet to reveal the outcome of their meeting.