Music festival offers hotline for noise complaints (From Hampshire Chronicle)

Music festival offers hotline for noise complaints

9:06am Wednesday 1st July 2009

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A MUSIC festival near Winchester is offering a contact number for residents who want to complain about noise pollution.

The Glade Festival at Matterley Bowl later this month is the first one held there to set up a hotline.

It follows an agreement between Winchester City Council environmental health staff and festival organisers.

In previous years, the council has provided its own telephone number, most of which relate to noise from the site.

Robert Heathcock, head of environment at the council, said: “We will be on site at times throughout the event and will respond to any major concerns.

"However, Glade have offered to provide their own hotline in order to avoid the potential for delays in responding to incidents caused by the need to pass information from one individual to another. This is a trial arrangement for this event and we will be reviewing its success during the event and in the debrief afterwards.

"Anyone who still wishes to contact the City Council can do so but the direct number offers the potential for a swifter response.”

Luke Piper, festival director, said: “We are committed to making this event run as smoothly as possible and want to minimise the inconvenience to local residents.

"We will have a team of staff on site to respond to issues and hope that the public will take the opportunity to contact us direct to help us deal with any problems more quickly. We will be recording the details of any calls received and discussing these with City Council staff. We have used this arrangement before and have found that it is very effective.”

The Glade Festival runs from July 16-19. Anyone experiencing problems during the event should contact the site on 01962 841221. Anyone wishing to speak to City Council staff should ring 01962 865407.

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