Plans for two large music events are causing concern for people living near Hove Park.
The Urban Moves Festival and Ibiza Proms in the Park have been included on Brighton and Hove City Council’s events calendar for June next year.
The council’s Culture, Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Economic Development Committee gave provisional landlord’s consent for the events at a meeting in September along with several other events on council-owned land.
A number of residents and the Friends of Hove Park contacted councillors to say that they were “dismayed” at the proposals for large-scale events without consultation.
Since then, Conservative councillors Ivan Lyons and Samer Bagaeen, who represent Westdene and Hove Park, have met officials.
Councillor Lyons said that officials had agreed to explain the proposals at a public meeting.
Urban Moves is a one-day family festival, with a 2,000 capacity, to celebrate emerging talents from the local funk, soul, jazz, hip-hop and RnB music scenes and with performances from dance companies.
Ibiza Proms in the Park is a one-day concert with a full orchestra reimagining dancefloor classics, with a capacity of up to 15,000.
Councillor Lyons said: “The long process now starts to decide if the plans are suitable for Hove Park, paying particular attention to the noise and waste that will be generated.
“Residents are particularly concerned about parking and noise intrusion as Hove Park is very much located in suburbia, with a high amount of residential accommodation surrounding.
“We understand that all larger events will be advertised and there will be no car access or parking for visitors.”
The Ibiza Proms is also pencilled in for Black Rock and was described in a report to councillors as a “high-profile launch event” for the new entertainment space at the end of Madeira Drive.
But work is still under way to create the space by next summer.
Councillor Lyons said that while the council’s outdoor events team was trying to create more opportunities in the west of the city, the prospect of such events in Hove Park had residents “rightfully concerned”.
He added: “Residents are rightfully concerned that this could be just a stepping stone, with the council moving more events to the park.
“Other locations such as Waterhall, Preston Park or Black Rock that are further away from residents should be prioritised as venues – to restrict noise.
“In moving forward as councillors, we expect officers to have full consultation with us, residents and local associations before any submission to committee for larger events at the park.”
Approval by a committee of councillors had been the first step and final permission for the events was expected in three to four months’ time.
Great, more noise.
And, as is always the case, they’ll turn up and trash the place and strew rubbish everywhere.
Which us CT payers will be forced to foot the bill for clearing up.
Uh oh, the Tory Fun Police are here! Why are right wingers so anti everything? What a miserable bunch, trying to spoil people’s fun. I see it’s the same Tory councillors who tried to cancel the Christmas events last year too – why don’t you focus on getting the bins collected instead of cancelling stuff?
Funny. I always assume the right-wingers are the selfish ‘anti-community’ moaners who always tell everyone else to move if they don’t like big faceless corporations using the city as an ATM. These are a ‘miserable bunch’ and make terrible neighbours. They don’t care about the community.
The event organisers pay for the clear up not the council
Park wrecked, locals angered, but as long as a couple thousand people have a good gurn and some London-based millionaires profit, who cares, right?
In the case of the On the Beach event, a good chunk of the profit goes to someone named the Paradise Papers. For other Outdoor Events planned next year, the money is shifted to a company in California. If only it was just London millionaires who profited!
I think that this is great news. I live opposite the park with young children and I look forward to these events. Some of us have to work Sundays so as long as the event finishes at 12.00 Saturday evening and everything is cleared up for those early morning park users. That’s what open spaces are for. There used to be the Family Funk Festival in the park – 2 nights if I remember correctly and that went down well.
Like the clear up from Pride which CT tenants pay for. As usual big corporate events taking over OUR parks. For the council to make money out of
If the council makes money then we obviously all benefit!
Pride pays for rubbish clearance.
No they don’t Pride charge residents and businesses to access their own properties to pay for it. Residents then have to put up with noise, rivers of urine and although they clean up much of the rubbish it is by no means all of the rubbish and also not the rubbish on the immediate outside border of the event which looks like a rubbish team. It is about time we had local referendums as to if residents want his any more. These are commercial events and they should be paying for commercial locations to hold them.
Yes it does pay.
Residents living in the village party zone and the immediate area outside if it get special wristbands that gives them access. They don’t have to pay to access their own homes.
Ditto workers at shops and businesses within the zone.
Not correct. Limited numbers of wristbands were distributed and many of us had to pay. Pride needs to leave St James which is not Kemptown which starts at Lower Rock Gardens. It is hated by most residents. Is unsafe for children who live in this area and needs to move elsewhere.
I’m afraid the view was Gay Pride organisers didn’t want businesses and residents to have hardly any wristbands so this event which we didn’t want was paid for by many of us. Residents and most business owners excluding the bars and pubs are absolutely livid about this and it needs to be moved or shut down. Many business had to simply close down for the weekend and this is considered acceptable by the council.
It would be illegal to make them pay to access their own homes. As it is, it is illegal to limit their visitors, stop them from bringing shopping home, stop them from bringing their bikes home and forcing them to queue for wristband. All illegal things to to.
Your just wrong.. Yes they do.
No they don’t. For most events the cleaning cost is carried by the council (i.e. residents and local business). We have had this confirmed by an FOI request.
Pride pays for it’s clear up and also raises funds for community projects
No they dont. Pride pay city clean to clean up
Wasn’t one of the reasons they promoted the building of the then-named American Express ‘Community’ Stadium’, that it could host lots of gigs in Summer?
Totally agree. There seems to be no consideration for residents. Kemptown has to suffer Gay Pride which is a noisy, commercial event that is unsafe for children to go to so residents need to in effect stay indoors for two days. Transpride is now moving to St James Street which means the residents of the New Steine and Dorset Gardens will also have to put up with two days of racket and now bizarrely the council is selling the parks to organsisations to have concerts against residents permission. This stuff should all be moved to the Amex stadium, Brighton Centre, Dome or out of densely populated residential areas.
So much hate for something that brings so much joy and community fundraising. Pride is a not for profit and once a year.
Why should residents give permission? They don’t own the park they just choose to live by it and gain all the privileges that brings for the other 363 days a year!
What a silly stupid idea…really? The chaos!!words fail me…
Income for the city which does not involve squeezing the electorate out of more taxes and parking costs should not be rejected out of hand as long as events are properly planned with plenty of notice to residents and full clean up and restoration of park to how it should be immediately after.
The council typically charges peanuts for these events which is why they refuse to use appropriate venues.
Charges and Fees are all on the council website
NIMBY Brighton people: “why can’t the Council do more to attract people into Brighton, they’re useless, everything they do is designed to keep people away”
Also NIMBY Brighton people: “we don’t want things in Brighton to attract people, people just cause noise and disturbance”
Frankly, if they live adjacent to Hove Park they can afford earplugs.
It would be quite nice if the council just ran events professionally and within the regulatory guidelines…ensuring that resident health and safety was taken into account don’t you think?
People aren’t against these events just where it is..
That’s the literal definition of NIMBY…
Good, at last, it is about time the west of Brighton had its share of the noise, traffic jams, parking on verges and litter that East Brighton has to put up with every time an event is put on.
Where is west Brighton ?? The last time I looked the Hove boundary started at the Peace statue anything east was considered Brighton anything east was Hove Aldrington and Portslade we once had our own separate council but were Never West Brighton
What was once a beautiful city, is now a sad state of affairs. Back in the ’70s &80s Brighton was such a lovely place; clean, nice people and amazing shops. Now it just has empty shops and homeless and drunks. The only nice area is North Kensington.
The Kemptown Residents Association has been investigating some of the councils for secretive contracts for a while now. We have done a lot of research and made a number of FOI requests, and have discovered:
The Events Team completely ignores regulatory guidelines for noise at concerts (what is known as the Pop Code), and some events last year broke legal guidelines as well (from residents monitoring of noise at events last year). Noise limits in urban areas cannot exceed 65db by the Pop Code and 75 db according to legal limits (more than that has a physical health impact). The council sets the limit of 75db and noise from some events has exceeded this.
The Events Team do not carry out risk assessments for events (including noise management plans), and any assessments carried out by promotors are secret and not available to the public (from an FOI request).
For one event, the events plan contained information that was so controversial that if it was revealed it would expose the promotors to the risks of ‘retribution’ from residents (according to an FOI request).
Many of the ‘companies’ running the events are part of a small monopoly of friends, working as directors in each others companies. They are given preferential treatment as information regarding their hire costs of the public spaces is confidential (from Companies House data and an FOI request).
The costs for cleaning up after events is not covered by the companies but by the council and therefore by residents and local business (from an FOI request).
Any revenues made by the council are secret and cannot be disclosed even under an FOI request (from an FOI request).
One of the companies promoting one of these events is ultimately owned by a company named in the Paradise Papers in connection with tax avoidance and money laundering (from companies house and the Paradise Papers leak).
Complaints about events are ‘lost’ (from an FOI request).
We also know from legal advice that the security arrangements for another outdoor event are actually illegal.
Whether you like outdoor gigs or not, surely we can all agree that they should be legal and transparent, and take residents and local business needs into account. We should not be an ATM for large corporations….
Oh…and if you complain, your personal information will be shared outside the council with people who claim to be involved but have no links to the event themselves…all a bit threatening (and very illegal)!
What pile of poop this council is. They’d burn their mothers if they could sell the ashes.
The sad thing is that the council banned the Kemptown Carnival (a local event run by local people for local people) for reasons they can’t share openly (apparently it was going to disrupt a wedding at Soho House)…but are happy to bow and scrape to every dodgy overseas company that demands to use our public spaces.
What a brilliant idea, itsan open space for everyone to enjoy not just the local residents. The mess will be cleaned up and the event is not on the scale of massive music festivals. Stop moaning NIMBYs
This will be hell on earth for anyone living near Hove Park. Only a very misguided and/or corrupt council can allow it to go ahead. It is quite likely that the local residents bought their property in the belief that it was a quiet and peaceful area, not one to have a nerve shattering racket going on.
It’s only a music event. Look around the world for “hell on earth”.
My concern is the impact on the soil structure and therefore root structures impacting on our Elm trees. Increased stress makes them more susceptible to Elm disease. Look at how events at Valley Gardens and the Steine are impacting precious trees.
Hove Park is an urban park with a fragile ecology already stressed. It is used by thousands of locals walking jogging dog walking sitting reading. Kids play, adults play. It’s a much loved space. Don’t ruin it.
Trash Brighton if you must with trashy raves but landscaped Hove Park was a beauty spot, a wildlife haven and peaceful green oasis created and maintained first by Hove Borough Council and briefly by the unitary authority until the former plants nursery and gardeners station was given to the Spanish free school.
A large area of the Pavilion Gardens lawn was totally destroyed and turned to mud years ago by exactly this kind of mass music event. It had ti be completely reseeded and roped off for very long time – must have been a year or two (?).
The council is on the edge of bankruptcy and no longer has the same level of gardeners and maintenance it once boasted. Hove Park, once trashed by these events will be on a frightening path to dereliction. It will not be re-greened.
I would not put it past the council to then offer event damaged park areas to some developer – leasehold of course! Its what every potential King Alfred developer was offered over the last 25 years.
Hove Park requires serious respect.
PS – Just remembering: the reason why the section of Pavilion Gardens took so long to recover was down to compacting of the earth by the level and kind of event use that destroyed the grass AND any attempt at repair. Some years back now – ten years or so!? Unforgettable and expensive damage.