Lancashire County Cricket Club retained its licence in spite of serious concerns over crowd control and crowd safety.

The club, based at Old Trafford, welcomed around 200,000 fans to four concerts over the course of 12 days this year, two shows by Harry Styles and individual ones by The Killers and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

At these concerts, council officers recorded significant issues relating to crowd control and crowd safety, and Greater Manchester Police (GMP) recorded a total of 16 crimes such as sexual assaults and thefts.

Reviews from the fans themselves on TripAdvisor also raised concerns about the management of these shows.

In response, Clare Whittle of Trafford Council Trading Standards applied on September 26 for a review of the licence, which was considered by the Licensing Sub-Committee last week. Options open to the sub-committee included changing conditions, excluding activities, suspending it or revoking it.

Members opted for the first of these options and allowed Lancashire County Cricket Club to retain its licence.

Their decision reads: "The sub-committee emphasised that it felt that Lancashire Cricket Club Limited had fallen short of the standards expected by the sub-committee and that it was only by good fortune that the consequences of those failings were not far more serious than they had actually been.

"However, the sub-committee noted Lancashire Cricket Club Limited's intention to address those issues and the proposals that were made in conjunction with the responsible authorities to modify the conditions of the licence to ensure, in so far as is possible, that there would be no re-occurrence of the failings."

The list of conditions added and altered is a long one, but all of it is focused on four objectives – the protection of children, the protection of public safety, the prevention of public nuisance and the prevention of crime and disorder.

The club is set to be monitored on its progress against these objectives when it returns with the programme for next year, which is set to include two appearances by Arctic Monkeys.

This article was written by Jack Tooth. Jack is the reporter for The Messenger and covers anything and everything from within the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford.

To contact him, email jack.tooth@newsquest.co.uk or follow @JTRTooth on Twitter.