road protests 2000
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From: "Heather" (heather@teknopunx.co.uk)
Subject: glastonbury
Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2000 11:00:34 -0000
URL: http://www.teknopunx.co.uk
ALAN LODGE
photographer - media: One Eye on the Road.
Nottingham. UK
tash@gn.apc.org
http://www.gn.apc.org/tash
Monday, 30 October 2000
some of you will have got this last week, sorry about that. But since I've lost notes on who I sent it to, please, everybody can bear with me, for those that didn't get it ...... thanks.
GLASTONBURY 2000
Local council report describes restriction to come on travellers attending and green-field.
the full post-Glastonbury 2000 report delivered by Steve Anderson (Head of Environmental Safety at Mendip District Council) to the Glastonbury and Street Area Board (the licensing authority for the Glastonbury Festival).
http://www.mendip.gov.uk/mendip/minutes.nsf/12354601e165685b802568e4005f8eb8/dc8a40c6955123a88025697300566711/$FILE/MASTER+DOCUMENT.doc
Guil-fin have also prepared it for download at: http://www.guilfin.org/festival/glastonbury.zip if the first one gives difficulties.
This seem to cut straight to the issue at hand!
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10. The Police were to reconsider their response in dealing with the potential invasions of the site by a large group of travellers.
And -
8. Specific Recommendations
a) The Festival Organisers and Police co-operate in resolving the issue of intrusion by the New Age Travellers convoys each year to the Festival site.
This year residents of Evercreech were affected by the noise from their amplified music. The Council would need to be satisfied with the Police and Festival Organisers proposals for dealing with the travellers before issuing an Entertainment Licence.
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GOOOD GOD!! How dare they. We helped build this event, and it was something to do with the alternative.
With the post beanfield / stoney cross / and the general stress that travellers were under at the time in the mid '80's, I was quite involved with the politics of the situation. It all started because of the trouble around the Stonehenge festival, and the influence that that had on gbury, it meant that to keep licence / maintain the public liability insurance, and hence be able to keep the event, they had to start to exclude the travelling population. Ie, the regulation 'scapegoats' , to be thrown to the lions, to appease business eh?
Its been on ongoing situation with hundred of thousands, having a nice time, but a few thousand of us have felt / been excluded for years now.
We have been shouting about some of the tools and powers (licences can be just another way of saying no, rather than the safety implied) that THEY have been taking onto themselves, to control gatherings.
First I remember in this vein, was the Local Government (miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982! This is where the idea of a licence to gather at a pop concert came from. A little before they got travellers, specifically, in their sights.
Well, we've been here before. but it appears to be Glastonbury's go next. There are just too many wanting to go, and there are no other 'proper' festivals left. So, what you do is whack up the ticket price, in proportion to demand. Police it, keep out the riff-raff. Simple really. I know there will be some argument with the organisation of the festival, but, when push come to shove, If they don't, they haven't got a festival.
This of course is going to put one against another on the issues that will arise. Who is a greenfield person, an eco-warrior with truck doing a stall, new age traveller, site worker wots' being paid to be there. Tons of stress coming!
The objective, of course, of those raising these objections, to attempt a cultural / ethnic cleansing of the festivals that remain ...
Have been sent the following by a concerned citizen. The incredibly long link in the letter below, is the 52 page report, that recommends no licence for next year, since, they say, there was so much abuse this year.
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Hello Tash
Not sure how clued you are at the minute about the latest position on Travellers at the Glastonbury Festival. BIG CHANGES AFOOT right now. Just in case you've not yet seen it, the following document is WELL worth a look.
http://www.mendip.gov.uk/mendip/minutes.nsf/12354601e165685b802568e4005f8eb8/dc8a40c6955123a88025697300566711/$FILE/MASTER+DOCUMENT.doc
The document is the full post-Glastonbury 2000 report delivered by Steve Anderson (Head of Environmental Safety at Mendip District Council) to the Glastonbury and Street Area Board (the licensing authority for the Glastonbury Festival).
Main points of the report :
A. The 2000 Festival was seriously overcrowded with unauthorised entrants (fencejumpers) and for this reason a prosecution of Michael Eavis is recommended.
B. Of chief interest to you I think : There were a large number of local complaints about the noise and so called nuisance coming from the New Age Travellers encampment at Pipplers Field (Field E2) at the eastern fringe of the main site.
I am a regular at Glastonbury (this year was my seventh) and as I'm sure you know, the Travellers have been there in numbers for the past few years. Michael Eavis has I believe kept open lines of communication with them and there has been room for reasonability and compromise as far as their setting up camp and partying is concerned. They have turned up, they haven't exactly been invited but they have been left space to stay for the duration. In fact a lot of non-Travelling festival goers have welcomed the Travellers presence and sound systems as an excellent part of the festival vibe.
They may have gone somewhat OTT this year though -- they were partying hard in that field til the Tuesday after the end of the festival -- most of the complaints (84 of them, but how many from the same people?) came after the festival had officially closed.
Because of that, it now seems that the local authorities have become determined to put a stop to the so-far chilled set up. You will notice from the report that they applied a Noise Abatement Order to the area where the Travellers were camped, and have served a breach of order notice on (I believe) the owner of Field E2 (from whom Michael Eavis was subletting it for carparking space). There is currently a counter appeal, probably from the same farmer, against the breach of order notice -- I guess he wants to test the grey area of who's legally responsible for the noise etc.
Whatever the outcome, Steve Anderson is recommending in the report that NO LICENSE IS ISSUED for a future festival unless the Council is reassured that reliable and enforceable measures are taken to exclude the Travellers altogether.
So Micheal Eavis is now in a very difficult position. His festival license is in jeopardy anyway because of the extra numbers of non ticket holders (there have been disputes about the exact numbers, but tents were certainly more cramped together this year than I have ever seen them). He has promised a new 20 foot perimeter fence costing ?1M, and no doubt the council and Police will insist further on a comprehensive set of new security measures.
So he will not be in a position any more to compromise with the Travellers as in the recent past -- or at least I see that as one of the sanitising sacrifices he will be forced to make in order to keep the Festival going at all. Even if he makes all sorts of promises re new fence, extra security, no Travellers, etc. etc., my own belief is that he will either be forced or will choose to make 2001 a gap year, then come back in 2002 with a much changed event. Some of my more pessimistic friends see it as the end of Glastonbury as we've known it -- there are certainly more potential threats to the festival's future than there have been for a long time.
There is some interesting debate on these and related issues going on on the Glastonbury Festival chat board at http://www.efestivals.co.uk. I have contributed myself under various pseudonyms.
Your thoughts here, particularly on the Travellers, would be very welcome either on the chat board or just email me. I am concerned that excluding the Travellers would be a cleaning up measure too far, OK the Festival has changed vastly since the early days but the compromises up til now have still left it to be one of the best of the big festivals. Excluding the Travellers would be a major change for the worse in terms of vibe and ambience.
Do you have current contacts with the Travellers, and have you had any at all up til now with Michael Eavis? It may be too late but I did wonder whether your intervention as an honest broker might yet save something from this depressing scenario.
All the best
William
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whatever next?
Love
tash
http://www.gn.apc.org/tash
tash@gn.apc.org
alanlodge01@sms.genie.co.uk
alanlodge01@genie.co.uk for short email to my mobile phone (send me an SMS message, to say you have emailed me)
WAP phone: http://wappy.to/tash
ICQ #24654598
photographer - One Eye on the Road
"It is not enough to curse the darkness.
It is also necessary to light a lamp!!"
"The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be resolved sooner or later is The People v. The Banks." - Lord Acton: Lord Chief Justice of England, 1875
road protests 2000
| road protests (current)
| movement links