Soprano's protest song for buskers in Covent Garden

Soprano Lesley Garrett joined scores of Covent Garden buskers to protest at cuts in their playing time.

The singer gave a free concert with 40 knife-jugglers, tightrope walkers, cellists and unicyclists fighting plans to reduce their performance slots by half.

Market landlord Capco is cutting their daily playing time from 20 hours to 10 amid claims that shop workers are upset by "constant" music.

Under new rules, the classical musicians will see their back-to-back slots cut from 50 minutes to 30, with a break of half an hour between each performance. The result is there will be only five hours of busking in both the North and South Halls instead of the current 11 hours and nine hours respectively.

The buskers say they make Covent Garden unique and help to draw its 30 million visitors a year. Garrett said the cuts seemed "insane". "This is the best place in the world for street performers and people come from all over the world to visit," she said. "The quality is fantastically high and I have performed with many people who started here."

Buskers' spokeswoman Beatrice Anderson, 29, a viola player from Archway, said some performers would be forced to quit. "We are trying to show what's at stake," she said. "We are the little people who make Covent Garden such a big place on the map." Unicycling clown Sham Amram, 42, from Ladbroke Grove - who performs with his four-year-old daughter Isis, - said: "This will mean my livelihood is gone and Isis won't be able to carry on the family tradition. Her great grandfather was an escapologist here." Covent Garden brand director Bev Churchill said less than 30 per cent of the busking slots would be cut. She added: "Performances take place pretty
much all day every day. There are only so many times people working here can listen to Nessun Dorma without going crazy."