Farmers and neighbours to one of the UK’s biggest retro music festivals held on the banks of the Thames each year have slammed the ‘disruption’ it causes.
Rewind Festival is a three-day music extravaganza held at the Temple Island Meadows near Henley on Thames.
The ‘Rewind Festival South’ event in Temple Island Meadows is in Remenham, which falls under Wokingham Borough Council’s jurisdiction.
This year, members of the Remenham Farm Residents Association (RFRA) have called for measures to be taken due to the intensity of traffic caused by the event.
In a submission to the council, Ronald Emerson, a member of the RFRA complained about the sheer numbers of people the event attracts.
Rewind Festival has a licensed daily capacity for 23,000, an influx which the farmers argue is too much for the area to cope with on each of the three-day festival.
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The farmers are not calling for the festival to be cancelled, but they do want to exercise some oversight over how it is run.
In order for the event to go ahead, the organisers are required to provide an Event Safety Management Plan (ESMP) and form both an Event Liaison Team (ELT) and a Safety Advisory Group (SAG).
The residents association that one of its representatives should be included in the ELT and SAG.
The group has raised concerns about large lorries causing blockages on nearby roads, providing three photos as evidence.
It requested that organisers submit a traffic management plan and hire a traffic management company to ensure festival lorries and attendees are correctly routed.
The association has also asked for the council to devise a traffic order to control driving conduct.
Finally, the group asked for a full Environmental Impact Assessment to determine the impact of the event on the community.
The residents association’s objections have been laid out after it responded to the festival organisers submitting a licensing application for the event to Wokingham Borough Council.
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RFRA has support from cllr John Halsall (Conservative, Remenham, Wargrave and Ruscombe) who’s also a member of the association.
The festival is due to take place from August 18 to 20.
The organisers have to apply for a licence to hold the event each year, with the application typically being granted.
A licensing meeting will be held to discuss the review of the licence for Rewind Festival South is set for Friday, April 28.
Headliners for this year’s festival include Andy Bell from Erasure, UB40 and Rewind regular Martin Kemp who will be DJing.
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