From: et
Sent: 21 March 2018 10:01
To: Licensing
Subject: *Possible SPAM* 18/00498/LAPRE

We sent this on 9 March, but if you did not receive, we send again:

 

March 9 2018

Licensing partnership, PO Box 182

Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 1GP

Dear Sir/Madam,

Re Spirit of Rock application for Mote Park ME15 7RN 29.6 to 1.7 2018.

We live in the Walled Garden of Audley Mote Retirement Village at the east end of Mote Park. The land is on a long lease to Audley from Maidstone Borough Council

We are owner occupiers paying full council tax at the rate of other properties outside this complex, although we pay Audley for services such as street lighting and sweeping, and collecting general refuse from our door, while we take our recyclables to a central point. We will be paying Audley or some other agency for social care.

We object to Spirit of Rock’s Ramblin Man because of the sickening and unnecessary noise which is often unrelenting for eleven hours on two or three successive days.

Like other residents in this complex and far beyond my husband and I cannot carry on a conversation on our patio and cannot listen to classical music in our living room even with all doors and triple glazed windows closed. There are hot spots all over the complex but the Walled Garden acts like an amphitheatre. We have to leave home for relief and to avoid sickening headaches.

The organiser of this event is a purely commercial outfit which flouts licensing agreements regarding noise.

For simplicity we will cite two examples for which we have documentary evidence.

1. In Ramblin Man 2016 the noise licensed to start at noon on Sunday July 24 actually started at 9.25 am. A complaint from me resulted in a lull until 10.45am when the noise started again and continued until10.30pm.

2. In Ramblin man 2017 the sound volume recordings in the vicinity of Mote House (obtained by Freedom of Information) which according to the Noise Management Plan( also obtained by FOI) should not have exceeded 70dB in the 63Hz or 125 Hz octave frequency bands in any 15 minutes, did so frequently near Mote House on Friday July 28, infrequently on Saturday July 29 when there was rain, but in nearly all measurements recorded on Sunday July 30 including two readings in the 62Hz. band at 78dB and 80.6 dB.

The attention to the serious disturbance caused by low frequency noise which was present in the excellent Noise Management Plan for 2016 (but ignored) was missing from the 2017 plan. This is said to have been drawn up by people involved with the Glastonbury event. This is not Glastonbury but an urban park in the centre of town.

That the speakers are directed across the park so that low frequency noise is enhanced is ridiculous. The speakers are too powerful for the site and miss-directed.

The only contact for complaint by Maidstone residents during the event is a telephone number to the organiser. There is no available direct contact with MBC Environmental Enforcement officers. The response from the organiser can be desultory or abusive.

These events amount to Statutory Noise Nuisance as defined in a Defra publication of April 7 2015.

People to the east of the park are driven from their homes by the persistent intolerable noise or made worse if they are too poorly to move away.

We have never been able to get an MBC officer or councillor to this site during periods of maximum noise from Ramblin Man,

We dread the coming summer weekends.

E. Moira Thompson (Dr.)

Edward J. Thompson (Prof.)