Yesterday I travelled to Barkestone to meet representatives of Parish Councils in the Vale of Belvoir and the beat sergeant to discuss the issues surrounding summer music festivals in the Vale.
Last summer the "Forbidden Forest" and "Noisily" festivals caused some disturbance to residents of the beautiful Vale villages. There were numerous traffic problems - including one fatal crash - as well as a vast amount of mud on the road, festival-goers invading gardens and private land, drug dealers attempting to get into the festivals by climbing hedges and fences, drug taking on site plus general noise and nuisance. All this was explained clearly by the Parish Council chairs, together with their very reasonable request that the festivals this coming summer be properly policed so that the festival-goers could enjoy themselves without causing undue nuisance to local residents.
They were fearful that the two festivals would be much larger next year than this. Both had grown from previous years and there were rumours that Forbidden Forest might increase from 15,000 people over three days to a minimum of 25,000 camping plus an unknown number of day tickets - maybe as much as 100,000! It was acknowldeged that this year Noisily was muted due to a terrific thunderstorm and prolonged rain, but again it was rumoured that there would be an increase in numbers this year and that good weather might massively increase noise and nuisance.
The beat sergeant and I were able to offer constructive advice and reassurance. The organisers of both festivals were engaging positively with the local council and with the police. There would be better perimeter fencing next year to reduce the incidence of drug dealers lurking around to penetrate the barriers. The festival security would be given proper training on how to spot and confiscate drugs from festival goers as they arrived [including drug-sniffer dogs], new traffic control measures would be in place together with speed control cameras at key places and times. There would also be 18 officers on duty to provide round the clock, effective coverage. Finally parish councillors will be given the personal phone number of the Vale beat officers to ensure direct contact throughout.
A final plea from the best sergeant and myself was that local residents should report all incidents, no matter how minor they might seem, to the police either via the 101 phone number or the website https://www.leics.police.uk.
As the meeting broke up, I wandered over to the Church of St Peter and St Paul to view its spectacularly lit spire.
