Mighty Hoopla and Field Day insist they'll go ahead as planned this month, despite losing a legal battle. But London Centric has learned other festivals in parks could now face challenges.
I lived right next to those festival for 4+ years and those weekends were the best of the year. Loads of people coming into Lambeth, dressing up, having fun. Even without going to the festivals, it felt like you were included and the rest of the area benefited from the vibe.
They can claim whatever they want in public, in court their lawyers want it all shut down. Saying things like the festivals ruin trees with “bat roosting potential” is a joke. Living in zone 2, in an area where the closest tube is Brixton and expecting a quiet life is like moving to Tunbridge Wells expecting a good rave scene. They can't just enjoy the controlled chaos for a month in the summer and let other people into their rarefied air.
On the nature side of things, I would be really up for them getting the festivals to pay more into a restoration fund, or move it to another area of the park for different years to give the fields a break, or invest in less impactful staging, but that's another conversation and one these people don't actually want to have - they just want to say no.
"Saying things like the festivals ruin trees with “bat roosting potential” is a joke"
It's only a joke if you're ignorant to the fact Brockwell is listed as a site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC) of Borough Importance (Grade I), and ignorant to the fact that huge number of bats and other species rely on these urban green spaces.
You might not like the environmental concerns people have about the impact of noise/light pollution and soil compaction on wildlife in the park, but to write it off as a 'joke' seems a little naive.
"Living in zone 2, in an area where the closest tube is Brixton and expecting a quiet life is like moving to Tunbridge Wells expecting a good rave scene. "
Equally, it seems bonkers to expect a 50k-person festival on your doorstep if you live in Zone 2. If people want easy access to massive festivals, they should probably move to Glastonbury. Festivals of this scale only started cropping up in Zone 2 parks in the mid/late 2010s. They're definitely not a long-term staple of residential areas in London. To suggest that locals who've lived here for decades should have expected that one day a massive festival would crop up in a hilly park surrounded on all sides by dense terraced streets and flats is quite disingenuous.
I've lived backing onto this park for 3 years, and prior to that lived a few streets over for 15 years. I don't mind the noise (and I really enjoy the 90s and noughties anthems blasting out of Mighty Hoopla). I love seeing the fancy dress and people having fun. But on the flip side, neighbours' car windows have been smashed during these events, huge amounts of rubbish are thrown into our garden, and not having access to the most-used area of the park for 6 weeks is incredibly frustrating (it doubles my daily school run). But the thing that is genuinely upsetting is seeing the impact on the park. Large parts of the festival site remained cordoned off all summer as they tried (and failed) to regrow the grass. The damage from last year's festival is still clearly visible all over the site.
Even Glastonbury is allowed to stand fallow every four years to allow the ground to recover. Yet here we have a listed park, in a conservation area, and parts of it are being run down in the name of private profit for mass commercial events. It seems wrong.
As a long time Brixton and subsequently West Norwood resident who has relatively recently removed away, I can see both sides, and definitely agree that a fallow year every 4 or 5 is needed. The disinformation on the part of the campaign group and others is what puts my back up - they haven't had a full environmental assessment done as they claimed - having read it in detail, the report they had done was basically another environmental consultant critiquing the original report from the council and pointing out gaps in the assessment, not actually proving anything. It's not most of the park either - generous assessments put it at 40% that is inaccessible - not ideal but all facilities remain open. From speaking to many of my friends who still live in the area - as pointed out here in other comments, the majority of the community seem to either not have a problem with the events or actively support them. Many small local businesses have criticised the campaign group as despite their claims, it does boost the local economy. Nor are any of these festivals 50,000 capacity - the highest appears to be Mighty Hoops which is capped at 30,000 per day. Really does smack of nimbyism - with the environmental concern claims not helped by the hypocrisy of one of the leading campaigners running a business involving flying back and forth to the Amazon to indulge middle class desires to get off their head in the name of 'enlightenment'....
I definitely see both sides too, but I would be surprised if most of the community is in favour of these festivals. A sizeable labour majority was overturned in the council seat that was up for grabs a couple of weeks ago. It went to a green councillor who ran on a platform of protecting the park from the festivals. Labour canvassers reported a lot of anger on the doorstep regarding these festivals, and apparently blamed their defeat on this issue (and the closure facing the Carnegie library).
From my own experience living in this area for 18 years, I know people who enjoy the festivals and want them to stay, but I know far more who feel they've grown too large and numerous. Judging by the colourful and varied graffiti sprayed all over the walls this morning (made for an interesting school run!—the Year 6 kiddo was in fits of giggles), I hardly think this is a case of a few wealthy NIMBYs making trouble for everyone else. On our road, people have been here decades—a huge array of creatives among them (myself and husband included), and the majority are against the scale of these events because the damage to the park is visible with our own eyes, no reports necessary. To say we're all anti-culture and NIMBYs feels like a lazy way to discount people's genuine concerns.
Edit: What would be ideal is if Lambeth follow a proper planning procedure next year. That would require a proper survey of the ecological impact, and the public would get their chance to speak in favour or against the plans. You would get a genuine gauge over how residents actually feel about them, rather than people relying on anecdata.
I'd hope (as has always been in the past) that the proposed closure of Carnegie was the more important issue here. And it was only a swing of 300 votes from Labour to Green if we're honest about it. That ward also has a high proportion of the wealthy middle class compared to other local wards so again perhaps not really representative of the wider community even if the festival issue did swing it. I do agree however that Lambeth should follow the proper planning procedure next year. Or better still, give the park a rest completely for one year (including not holding the LCS as that is clearly not financially viable considering the security required without these other festivals) and then follow the procedure correctly the following year. Presumably the objections will be less in that case, if a lot of the reasons being given by some are genuine...
I think if they cycled these festivals through various parks, instead of expecting one park (and community) to host them all every year, there would be far fewer objections.
Brockwell Park definitely needs a chance to recover. It's really depressing crossing through the site at the moment. The grass is already in terrible condition from last year, damage that's compounded by the dry weather. And as they're predicting a lengthy spring drought, I don't see how the already-dying grass is going to be able to recover from this year's festivals, which means another summer of that whole area being covered in weeds and fenced off sections as they try to reseed it. It's just not fair to locals (or anyone who loves this park), IMO. This isn't a minor inconvenience for 6 weeks. It has long-lasting ramifications throughout the whole summer (and much, much longer, from an ecological standpoint).
It's perhaps tempting to try to guess how various areas neighbouring Brockwell Park feel about this festival, but that's all based on generalised assumptions about people (based largely on socio-economic/demographic factors), which is a sticky path to take, IMO. The only true way to gauge public opinion is for Lambeth to run public consultations. Any resident can share their views online, so it's not prohibitive. Until then, we're all just assuming most people feel how we feel, whichever respective side of the fence (or great big, defaced wall, rather) we've landed on. No one can speak for the majority, only data.
My hopes of Lambeth doing the right thing, though, are nil. There's a reason they receive the second-most complaints out of any council in the UK. From working for them as a teacher, living here for 18 years, and going through their various SEN services for my son (including tribunals), I find them maliciously incompetent.
It is probably worth noting the community response in Lambeth over the weekend to the potential cancellation of the festivals was overwhelming negative, bordering on febrile. The comments sections of the campaigners were bombarded with many hundreds of angry posts to the point where they had to disable them. Many people viewed the campaign, rightly or wrongly, as white middle class people gatekeeping public spaces solely for events that met their approval, without giving either space or thought to those other cultures who live alongside them and who hold different views on the importance of celebration. Other campaign groups should take note of the optics of nixing events that many community members actively look forward to. It really and truly could have turned quite nasty in Lambeth had the festivals been canned.
"Could this ruling see a return to more unusual venues and quirky festivals in London?"
This is what I think deserves investigation. Wide Awake festival was previously Test Pressing, a memorable multi venue festival that took over many already gone sites around Seven Sisters/Tottenham and then in Hackney Wick (I guess there are complaints from Wick neighbours regarding the day festivals in summer, right?) and had to become a day festival... because they were not making money.
In any case, we have councils with no money, promoters with no money, venues with no money... where the hell is all the money going? Apart from the festivals which generate a lot of money ok but money that does not come back to the parks or councils... where is all the money regarding music going? Venue Mot had an article in The Guardian lately talking about the amount of money they were losing weekend after weekend, so is the business completely unsustainable unless you make a 10k people festival?
Personally I'd like the Friends of which ever park to actually show that they are representative not only of locals living round the parks but the many users of parks who come from further afield including those who come for the festivals. The FoFP hate the festivals and Wireless most of all but are happy to reap the benefits of the extra cash which include fantastic new play areas and a new skate park amongst other things which are distinctly absent from most of the rest of Haringey's parks.
The voice of the loud, entitled and highly motivated minority is currently too loud over the less motivated majority. It's time to stand up to these Nimbys.
“To complicate matters, the Met police increasingly prefer events to be held in secure fenced-off areas with security rather than free-for-all unticketed events where anyone can wander in.”
It would be very interesting to see this advice. Even things that are still free like RideLondon (admittedly off this year thanks to route issues) and the marathon seem to be loaded up with a lot of requirements on security which must be costing a fair whack. Does everything need a ring of steel?
NIMBY: messing up our local parks and playing the “we’re doing it for the young people and locals” as if we don’t also love our green parks for all to enjoy.
Laws need observing shocker! It sounds like there will be some minor legal inconvenience this year. Next year the behemoth promoters and their legions of well remunerated lawyers will have devised strategies to deal with this issue. The local authorities are also too cash starved to not let these events go on. I suspect this will be a pyrrhic victory for the campaigners.
It's not important to the bigger picture but worth adding that the colleague Alex Mahon devised her novel with is Walter Iuzzolino, a.k.a. *the* Walter of Walter Presents, Channel 4's Euro-drama importer. No clue on his view on music festivals in London parks tbh.
Great reporting! 👏 It is interesting that KKR is behind this - they are expert in earning money. The wall photos are a great way of commenting on the „inclusivity“ of the festivals 😉
I lived right next to those festival for 4+ years and those weekends were the best of the year. Loads of people coming into Lambeth, dressing up, having fun. Even without going to the festivals, it felt like you were included and the rest of the area benefited from the vibe.
They can claim whatever they want in public, in court their lawyers want it all shut down. Saying things like the festivals ruin trees with “bat roosting potential” is a joke. Living in zone 2, in an area where the closest tube is Brixton and expecting a quiet life is like moving to Tunbridge Wells expecting a good rave scene. They can't just enjoy the controlled chaos for a month in the summer and let other people into their rarefied air.
On the nature side of things, I would be really up for them getting the festivals to pay more into a restoration fund, or move it to another area of the park for different years to give the fields a break, or invest in less impactful staging, but that's another conversation and one these people don't actually want to have - they just want to say no.
"Saying things like the festivals ruin trees with “bat roosting potential” is a joke"
It's only a joke if you're ignorant to the fact Brockwell is listed as a site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC) of Borough Importance (Grade I), and ignorant to the fact that huge number of bats and other species rely on these urban green spaces.
You might not like the environmental concerns people have about the impact of noise/light pollution and soil compaction on wildlife in the park, but to write it off as a 'joke' seems a little naive.
"Living in zone 2, in an area where the closest tube is Brixton and expecting a quiet life is like moving to Tunbridge Wells expecting a good rave scene. "
Equally, it seems bonkers to expect a 50k-person festival on your doorstep if you live in Zone 2. If people want easy access to massive festivals, they should probably move to Glastonbury. Festivals of this scale only started cropping up in Zone 2 parks in the mid/late 2010s. They're definitely not a long-term staple of residential areas in London. To suggest that locals who've lived here for decades should have expected that one day a massive festival would crop up in a hilly park surrounded on all sides by dense terraced streets and flats is quite disingenuous.
I've lived backing onto this park for 3 years, and prior to that lived a few streets over for 15 years. I don't mind the noise (and I really enjoy the 90s and noughties anthems blasting out of Mighty Hoopla). I love seeing the fancy dress and people having fun. But on the flip side, neighbours' car windows have been smashed during these events, huge amounts of rubbish are thrown into our garden, and not having access to the most-used area of the park for 6 weeks is incredibly frustrating (it doubles my daily school run). But the thing that is genuinely upsetting is seeing the impact on the park. Large parts of the festival site remained cordoned off all summer as they tried (and failed) to regrow the grass. The damage from last year's festival is still clearly visible all over the site.
Even Glastonbury is allowed to stand fallow every four years to allow the ground to recover. Yet here we have a listed park, in a conservation area, and parts of it are being run down in the name of private profit for mass commercial events. It seems wrong.
As a long time Brixton and subsequently West Norwood resident who has relatively recently removed away, I can see both sides, and definitely agree that a fallow year every 4 or 5 is needed. The disinformation on the part of the campaign group and others is what puts my back up - they haven't had a full environmental assessment done as they claimed - having read it in detail, the report they had done was basically another environmental consultant critiquing the original report from the council and pointing out gaps in the assessment, not actually proving anything. It's not most of the park either - generous assessments put it at 40% that is inaccessible - not ideal but all facilities remain open. From speaking to many of my friends who still live in the area - as pointed out here in other comments, the majority of the community seem to either not have a problem with the events or actively support them. Many small local businesses have criticised the campaign group as despite their claims, it does boost the local economy. Nor are any of these festivals 50,000 capacity - the highest appears to be Mighty Hoops which is capped at 30,000 per day. Really does smack of nimbyism - with the environmental concern claims not helped by the hypocrisy of one of the leading campaigners running a business involving flying back and forth to the Amazon to indulge middle class desires to get off their head in the name of 'enlightenment'....
I definitely see both sides too, but I would be surprised if most of the community is in favour of these festivals. A sizeable labour majority was overturned in the council seat that was up for grabs a couple of weeks ago. It went to a green councillor who ran on a platform of protecting the park from the festivals. Labour canvassers reported a lot of anger on the doorstep regarding these festivals, and apparently blamed their defeat on this issue (and the closure facing the Carnegie library).
From my own experience living in this area for 18 years, I know people who enjoy the festivals and want them to stay, but I know far more who feel they've grown too large and numerous. Judging by the colourful and varied graffiti sprayed all over the walls this morning (made for an interesting school run!—the Year 6 kiddo was in fits of giggles), I hardly think this is a case of a few wealthy NIMBYs making trouble for everyone else. On our road, people have been here decades—a huge array of creatives among them (myself and husband included), and the majority are against the scale of these events because the damage to the park is visible with our own eyes, no reports necessary. To say we're all anti-culture and NIMBYs feels like a lazy way to discount people's genuine concerns.
Edit: What would be ideal is if Lambeth follow a proper planning procedure next year. That would require a proper survey of the ecological impact, and the public would get their chance to speak in favour or against the plans. You would get a genuine gauge over how residents actually feel about them, rather than people relying on anecdata.
I'd hope (as has always been in the past) that the proposed closure of Carnegie was the more important issue here. And it was only a swing of 300 votes from Labour to Green if we're honest about it. That ward also has a high proportion of the wealthy middle class compared to other local wards so again perhaps not really representative of the wider community even if the festival issue did swing it. I do agree however that Lambeth should follow the proper planning procedure next year. Or better still, give the park a rest completely for one year (including not holding the LCS as that is clearly not financially viable considering the security required without these other festivals) and then follow the procedure correctly the following year. Presumably the objections will be less in that case, if a lot of the reasons being given by some are genuine...
I think if they cycled these festivals through various parks, instead of expecting one park (and community) to host them all every year, there would be far fewer objections.
Brockwell Park definitely needs a chance to recover. It's really depressing crossing through the site at the moment. The grass is already in terrible condition from last year, damage that's compounded by the dry weather. And as they're predicting a lengthy spring drought, I don't see how the already-dying grass is going to be able to recover from this year's festivals, which means another summer of that whole area being covered in weeds and fenced off sections as they try to reseed it. It's just not fair to locals (or anyone who loves this park), IMO. This isn't a minor inconvenience for 6 weeks. It has long-lasting ramifications throughout the whole summer (and much, much longer, from an ecological standpoint).
It's perhaps tempting to try to guess how various areas neighbouring Brockwell Park feel about this festival, but that's all based on generalised assumptions about people (based largely on socio-economic/demographic factors), which is a sticky path to take, IMO. The only true way to gauge public opinion is for Lambeth to run public consultations. Any resident can share their views online, so it's not prohibitive. Until then, we're all just assuming most people feel how we feel, whichever respective side of the fence (or great big, defaced wall, rather) we've landed on. No one can speak for the majority, only data.
My hopes of Lambeth doing the right thing, though, are nil. There's a reason they receive the second-most complaints out of any council in the UK. From working for them as a teacher, living here for 18 years, and going through their various SEN services for my son (including tribunals), I find them maliciously incompetent.
Bore off. Hope the festivals are nice and loud this year.
It's okay; reading comprehension isn't for everybody. I'm sure you have many other talents.
Thank you. The voice of the loud, entitled and highly motivated minority is currently too loud over the less motivated majority.
It is probably worth noting the community response in Lambeth over the weekend to the potential cancellation of the festivals was overwhelming negative, bordering on febrile. The comments sections of the campaigners were bombarded with many hundreds of angry posts to the point where they had to disable them. Many people viewed the campaign, rightly or wrongly, as white middle class people gatekeeping public spaces solely for events that met their approval, without giving either space or thought to those other cultures who live alongside them and who hold different views on the importance of celebration. Other campaign groups should take note of the optics of nixing events that many community members actively look forward to. It really and truly could have turned quite nasty in Lambeth had the festivals been canned.
Typical of NIMBYs to fuck things up for the majority and then shut down the debate because it's getting a bit hairy.
If they can't stand the heat....
I am going to insist
"Could this ruling see a return to more unusual venues and quirky festivals in London?"
This is what I think deserves investigation. Wide Awake festival was previously Test Pressing, a memorable multi venue festival that took over many already gone sites around Seven Sisters/Tottenham and then in Hackney Wick (I guess there are complaints from Wick neighbours regarding the day festivals in summer, right?) and had to become a day festival... because they were not making money.
In any case, we have councils with no money, promoters with no money, venues with no money... where the hell is all the money going? Apart from the festivals which generate a lot of money ok but money that does not come back to the parks or councils... where is all the money regarding music going? Venue Mot had an article in The Guardian lately talking about the amount of money they were losing weekend after weekend, so is the business completely unsustainable unless you make a 10k people festival?
Personally I'd like the Friends of which ever park to actually show that they are representative not only of locals living round the parks but the many users of parks who come from further afield including those who come for the festivals. The FoFP hate the festivals and Wireless most of all but are happy to reap the benefits of the extra cash which include fantastic new play areas and a new skate park amongst other things which are distinctly absent from most of the rest of Haringey's parks.
The voice of the loud, entitled and highly motivated minority is currently too loud over the less motivated majority. It's time to stand up to these Nimbys.
“To complicate matters, the Met police increasingly prefer events to be held in secure fenced-off areas with security rather than free-for-all unticketed events where anyone can wander in.”
It would be very interesting to see this advice. Even things that are still free like RideLondon (admittedly off this year thanks to route issues) and the marathon seem to be loaded up with a lot of requirements on security which must be costing a fair whack. Does everything need a ring of steel?
My view:
YIMBY: more affordable housing
NIMBY: messing up our local parks and playing the “we’re doing it for the young people and locals” as if we don’t also love our green parks for all to enjoy.
Laws need observing shocker! It sounds like there will be some minor legal inconvenience this year. Next year the behemoth promoters and their legions of well remunerated lawyers will have devised strategies to deal with this issue. The local authorities are also too cash starved to not let these events go on. I suspect this will be a pyrrhic victory for the campaigners.
This is a pretty straightforward legal issue, with the only surprise being that monster corporations with magic circle lawyers didn't spot it before.
Paraphrasing Jim: many times when you wonder how things work in London, it is because they depend on something illegal.
CVC is not American
It's not important to the bigger picture but worth adding that the colleague Alex Mahon devised her novel with is Walter Iuzzolino, a.k.a. *the* Walter of Walter Presents, Channel 4's Euro-drama importer. No clue on his view on music festivals in London parks tbh.
I, for one, will be reading.
Great reporting! 👏 It is interesting that KKR is behind this - they are expert in earning money. The wall photos are a great way of commenting on the „inclusivity“ of the festivals 😉