Protesters lose fight to stop Creamfields festiva lJun 28 2006
By Alan Weston, Daily Post
The Creamfields dance festival will go ahead at its new site in Daresbury over the August Bank Holiday weekend.
A meeting at Runcorn town hall last night approved an application for the festival to take place, in the teeth of fierce opposition from hundreds of nearby residents.
Organisers confirmed that they hoped they could make Daresbury the new permanent home of the 45,000-capacity event, which this year will feature acts such as Gnarls Barkley and The Zutons.
During an often heated three-hour meeting last night, objectors, who included neighbouring Warrington Council, put forward their arguments for why the application for a licence to use the land for the festival should be refused. They claimed it would lead to unacceptable levels of noise and also raised fears about crime and anti-social behaviour as a result of the all-night event being held in the semi-rural location.
But, after hearing the arguments put by Creamfields, Halton's regulatory committee decided the event can go ahead over the weekend of August 26/27.
The move to its new site became necessary because its former location, at the former Liverpool Airfield site in Speke, is being developed.
One of the objectors who spoke at the meeting, Julian Wrigley, who lives within 1.5 miles of the site, said: "I believe the proposed event and the influx of people on such a large scale has the potential to do untold harm to the community.
"We have nothing against Creamfields, but it is a Merseyside-based commercial operation. Do they really care about the area in which we live, other than as a site for this event?"
Another objector, 24-year-old Mathew Nicols, who lives with his parents near the site, said: "In addition to the excessive noise level, there is likely to be a widespread use of Class A drugs at the event, and people without tickets roaming the area."
Many of the residents said they would be "prisoners in their own homes" as they would need passes to get to and from their properties during the event.
However, organisers said this was to prevent festival-goers getting access to residential areas.
They also said that noise levels would be closely monitored by an independent expert who had the power to reduce the volume if necessary, and that a traffic management plan had been worked out with environmental health officers and the police.
Simon Taylor, a solicitor for the organisers, admitted that some residents would be able to hear noise after 11pm, but that this was acceptable as Creamfields was classed as a "one-off event."
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Victory for music, but would you want this is your back garden............
well I would!
