To not understand how this can be allowed without anyone asking local residents?

[treatmelikeamushroom]

Just read a big announcement on our local facebook page saying a 3 day festival with an absolutely enormous capacity is being held on the fields behind my house this summer (my garden backs onto the fields). I don't want to say how big exactly because it's outing (news articles that come up if you google the exact figure) but it's several times bigger than the entire population of the small town I live in! The road access is really bad already and there's really bad traffic that causes hour long delays when the annual county show is held which is only on for 1 day and is a tiny number of people compated to this festival. There's never been anything even approaching this size here before, it's about 10 times the size of any events that the fields have ever held before. It's a fairly small site so to fit in what the organisers say they're fitting in (5 stages including a dance stage run by a very famous nightclub) every scrap of the fields will have to be used right up to the residents garden fences and the noise will be horrific.

But apparently it's a done deal and is all been given the green light by the town council? It's not a busy place at all, it's a very small town and the site has a main road running through the middle of it (so half the fields are on each side of this road) and housing estate running all down one side of it. Usually it's mostly used for just sheep and one or two of the fields (there's about 6 in total) for the small local event like car boot sales or the county show or a classic car show (and those events cause traffic chaos as it is despite being only very small events ) What I don't understand is I walk over those field nearly every day for the school run and there's been no notices about the plans or anything, no local residents have had a chance to see the plans or object or anything. I can't over state how unsuitable a venue this is for what I've read is happening without outing my location but its really really not at all appropriate! Do residents not have to be told or asked about plans for something thjs big and disruptive ??

It's only 3 days. I think you'll be fine.

It won't be the three days only though. There will be probably two or three weeks install and up to a week to derig it all. Admittedly less noisy than the actual event but still a lot of extra noise and traffic.

Oh I don't really know what council does what but I know the town council have said they fully support it and the organiser have said they've got all the legalities agreed (that's their words) so I assumed that means the town council have given it permission? Maybe it's the county council then?

It depends on what levels of local authority you have in your area. If the town council is the sort that only has parish council status, they may well support it, but it's the district or unitary authority which needs to actually licence it.

Would you be willing to tell us where exactly?

I’d be keeping an eye out on Air b&B and see what you might get for offering your house to an event attendee.

or I’d be booking a getaway that weekend if it’s not your type of music.

If it helps your worries. I also live near creamfields. Residents get 4 free tickets to the festival. They also close all local roads aside from one entry/exit road. Which gets busy. But residents get permits to drive down all the roads that are closed. So actually traffic is fine because you can avoid that one main road very easily.

Security is brilliant, the clear up team afterwards are fantastic. Honestly if you really can’t bare it just go away for the weekend. This is what we did the first couple of years we moved here because we’d heard how awful it was. Then one year we stayed home and it wasn’t awful. It was fine. We enjoyed listening to the music in the garden. Now we even go to the festival sometimes and it’s brilliant.
Lived here over 10 years now and never had a problem with any part of the festival. It may not be as bad as you’re anticipating

I really feel for you OP. We have a festival quite near us. It is 4 days. It goes on until 4am.
The noise is unbearable.
I can actually feel the bass in my chest and skull. There is no chance of sleep.
The kids cry as they can’t sleep.
There is no respite- the noise/bass is there all day and throughout the night until the early hours.
In the past I did ask them to pay for us to go to a hotel for the duration but they didn’t reply and anyway we have pets we couldn’t leave, and I wouldn’t like to leave the house empty due to all the vandalism and crime that occurs.
Roads are a nightmare, you can’t go out unless you want to sit in massive traffic jams with drunk people wandering in and out of the traffic. You get hoards of people walking down main country roads causing havoc.
No one consulted locals about putting it on. The organisers don’t give a shit about local residents. They only care about making money.
I absolutely dread it, it’s like sleep deprivation torture for our family (yes we all wear earplugs but the music is much too loud for them to help).

The music is crap dance music with just a pounding bass, and no tune, that gives me a pounding migraine and gets deep into my skull.
There is no consideration for those people who live in the local area. People are totally inconsiderate.

I would for a consortium of residents and pitch loadssssss of tents or gazebos (or both?!) bouncy castles, anything you can think of 2 days before they arrive so you're there when they get there, then refuse to move! If a few hundred families do it, you'll cause the organisers a real headache as those who've paid to pitch where you are, will be demanding a refund!

We hear creamfields from around 11/12 miles away depending on the wind, we also see the lights. I can only imagine how bad it must be to be closer.

Is all very well to tell op to just suck it up, it wont be that bad, stop being a nimby etc. I bet most of the people saying this would soon be moaning how bad it actually is.

Oh and our council tried to push a permanent traveller site through without telling anyone, a council member though this was a disgrace, left the party, set up as an independent and let everyone know why.

It's only for three days, it could be great! I'd find that very exciting and youngsters will love it. If you live so very near, you'll be able to hear the acts without paying to get in and maybe see them if they have those big screens all over the place.

👉Start by asking your local MP or whatever they are called. EMAIL, so you have an audit trail and they know it.
They will know who is licensing this and what role the Council plays. They can point you to the laws and regulations that will be applicable.
They are also going to be interested to hear what their voters think.
👉From there contact whoever has the power to authorise and start asking them detailed questions. EMAIL, so you have an audit trail and they know it. The sorts of questions you have asked here and that others have raised from their experiences elsewhere.
Ask for the detailed plans - layout, times, security arrangements, toilet facilities, road access plans, etc.

😍I don't know about your laws but here all emails are FOI-able and the better informed you sound with attention to details esp in an email, the more seriously they will take you.
😊Also when you get an email response, go through the whole thing. I was once handed a little beauty 😘because my email was passed around within council before being sent back and 1 of the internal comments basically outed themselves for getting retrospective advice (2 years after the event) and having basically told the consultant what they wanted him to say.

I live near newquay - every year we have board masters and the traffic snarls to a halt, it takes hours to get to and from work and generally the whole town is so full you can't move. The locals for the most part dislike it, the shops loose money but every year they increase the capacity. Its madness and just a money maker for those in charge of planning permission.

Three days of music until the early hours and kids not sleeping is torture. If festivals can’t be held in the middle of nowhere they should play at reasonable volumes and turn it off early. It’s horrible to say that anyone advocating for their own interests is a NIMBY. Any normal person wants to live in a place that is safe and peaceful. That’s totally reasonable.

But it isn’t, it’s two weeks before minimum of large lorries arriving from 6am to 8pm and another week after to take it all down

Heaven forbid that the travellers have somewhere to stay 😳

Embrace it and have fun!
Or plan a trip away.
Don't stress in the meantime not worth it

We go to Creamfields every year and absolutely love it (I'm in my late 50's). I would love to live nearby and watch all the set building etc. Have noticed all the security outside the big houses on the road that leads up to it.

To my point. Creamfields is huge, 70,000 ravers for 3 days - can the detractors just stop and think for a moment about just how much money we bring to Warrington every year? We eat out the night we arrive, we stay in a Premier Inn for 3 nights. We shop ok the local shops, we fill our cars with fuel, I could go on. The hotels, restaurants, security, clear up gangs will all create lots of employment. I also went to the Big Weekend last year in Luton and we all streamed down the hill afterwards having had a great time. Loads of locals out in their front gardens, sitting in deck chairs enjoying a beer with great atmosphere. Corner shops doing an absolute roaring trade. It brought £7 million to Luton, a town that isn't wealthy (I love that Big Weekend tends to favour poorer places.)

Just try and look at it from a different POV.

I presume there will be a high perimeter fence adjacent to your property, so not so bad.

Yes absolutely there will be, it's not like in the old days of free raves where people did just climb into people's gardens which was awful

It shouldn’t be the town council that can give it the go ahead, if on public land it would have to go to the local authority for approval where ISAG independent safety advisory group will assess the safety. Normally it has representatives from police, fire , ambulance service, licensing, highways etc. even if it’s not on public land it would still have to get a premise licence or a TENS licence if under 499. I would speak with your local authority to ascertain the details. They will need a licence and there will be certain conditions attached. Also normally festival organisers should have to do resident comms

Oh God this sounds like hell 😭

It'll be licensing and events at your local county council.

The festival organisers will be keen to keep locals on side and will share their plans and listen to your concerns.

Will it be good for the local economy?

Yes, see my post a couple of lines up

Just had to google what NIMBY means. It's so accurate.

Reminds me of when the homeless were moved on from Windsor for the wedding.

These aren't "big houses" with front gardens, it's a council estate. And good luck filling your car with fuel here, there's only one petrol station for this whole town and it's on the other side of an already congested bottleneck junction from the site 🤣 Weirdly about 15 miles away (same council area) there's a site that's actually already a really good festival venue with all the right access and infrastructure already in place and no houses bordering it, so I don't know why they aren't just going there instead!