“Exemplary” noise controls on festivals held on Newcastle’s Town Moor this summer are proof that the city can host major events without creating a nightmare for neighbours, council bosses say.
Newcastle City Council chiefs launched a crackdown on nuisance from big music festivals, imposing a set of strict new conditions limiting activity in Exhibition Park and Leazes Park after complaints about “horrendous” disturbance caused by last year’s This is Tomorrow concerts. The Exhibition Park furore sparked a row between local authority officials and the charity which now runs the city’s green spaces, Urban Green Newcastle, which claimed that the tougher noise limits would make it impossible to stage large events and thereby cut off a critical source of income.
But councillors were told last week that three big festivals held on the Town Moor this summer, which were also subject to new regulations from the council, had attracted far fewer complaints than had been feared.
