Complaint regarding noise as a direct result of evening events at new major music venue

[do11y]

Dear mums netters,

I have already posted this question elsewhere but someone suggested I post here to too in order to get some views from our legal-eagle mums-netters, if this counts as spamming, please let me know (I apologise profusely!!!) so that I can try to remove this thread.

Now, onto the matter at heart...

I bought my property 9 years ago. At the time, there was a large venue quite close to the property which held very occasional live gigs (around 3 or 4 a year). The venue can accommodate several thousand event goers, so is by no means small. However at the time I purchased my property, there was a rumour that this venue was going to be converted to luxury flats.

Anyway, as the years have gone by, that luxury flats idea has clearly been abandoned and this venue has started hosting many more live events much more frequently. This in turn has created much more nuisance noise which local residents have to put up with. Because the nearest station is some way from venue and we in turn live directly opposite said station, we are subjected to quite substantial increases in noise, traffic and anti-social behaviour as a direct result of these evening events. The events generally finish around 22h30 in the evenings, and the main thrust of the inconveniences we are subjected thereafter are:

1 - hundreds upon hundred of people (if not thousands!) milling passed our homes at anti-social hours (i.e.: after 23h00) in order to get to the station, but in the process making all sorts of noise and with some behaving exceptionally badly - from chanting, shouting, shrieking, to urinating in people’s gardens and littering all over the place
2 - dramatically increased traffic down our road and traffic jams with cars constantly tooting each other and at pedestrians who are walking in the street - all after 23h00!
3 - station-specific noise with staff on very loud tannoy speakers directing revellers, but in the process annoying local residents. These tannoy disruptions do not occur otherwise.
4 - severe disruptions for local residents to their local transport - for example we cannot use our local busses or trains at certain times because they are filled to capacity by event revellers.

I spoke with the event organiser of these events and so far all he’s willing to do is put up signs to ask visitors to keep quiet. In my view this is an exceptionally weak response to the problem and will not be affective at all - especially when we’re talking about large crowds of people who may be drunk.

I have also contacted the event licensing department of our local council. I have to say I am extremely disappointed with their response too. The woman I spoke with gave me no indication whatsoever that she was willing to tackle this problem. In fact she gave me the strong impression that the local residents this affects (12 dwellings) must just put up with it because the venue needs to have some way to generate revenue for itself. Unfortunately the venue is publicly owned and the Council is a major Trustee on their board, so there is a severe conflict of interest - it is in the council’s interest to have as many events at that venue as possible in order to generate maximum revenue... but at the same time they are there to protect the interests of local residents. And we certainly are quite entitled to quiet enjoyment of our own homes. Yet the council have seemed very ineffective so far - to the point, it seems, of discouraging any further fight about this.

Furthermore, the council licensing lady also insinuated that she would not review the premises licence just because of noise which occurs AFTER the event, as she says that the venue itself are complying with orders (such as putting signs up to ask visitors to keep quiet) and therefore they cannot be held responsible for patrons' behaviour once they leave the venue. My view is that these hordes of people would not be there at antisocial hours in the first place to cause such disturbances if it wasn't for the event, therefore the venue must surely have a responsibility to transport visitors off the site as quickly and quietly as possible so as to cause no disruption - this is a residential area after all!

Mums netters, what is your legal take on this? Local residents along my road were not consulted on how the increase in the number of evening events at this venue would affect us or our road and access to public transport at antisocial hours. Whilst the venue has been there for well over 100 years, it was not clear when I bought my property that it was going to become this busy - in fact, as mentioned earlier, there was every expectation that it was going to be turned into luxury flats because the building itself is managed by our Council and was a severe drain on public taxes at one stage.

Legally, is there anything we can do? The link to my other post here