Festival was a 'living nightmare'

Shamania, billed as a new way to celebrate the ancient Celtic festival of Lugnasadh, was held on land between Barnoldswick, Gisburn and Barrowford from Friday to Monday.

It is the only UK festival to have a continuous, four-day music licence and was dedicated to "Psy-Trance" underground dance music.

After receiving 12 complaints about last year's festival, which was held at Noggarth Hill at Roughlee, Pendle Borough Council put in place a number of licensing conditions for this year's event.

The festival was allowed to have 1,500 people and 500 cars. Noise was supposed to be kept at an agreed level.

But Gisburn Old Road resident Adrian Lang said that living next to the festival for four days had been a complete nightmare for himself and his neighbours.

Mr Lang said: "There were so many breaches of the licensing conditions it was unbelievable."

Mr Lang's main concern was that the site was unsuitable for a 24-hour, four-day music festival.

He said: "It is unsuitable because it is a single track road that leads to the festival site. Beyond that there are four houses, including my own, which were more of less cut off from civilisation during the festival."

Mr Lang said that although he stayed put all his neighbours left their homes over the course of the weekend because they could not stand the noise.

"The noise was intolerable. We only had about three hours sleep a night," he said.

Pendle Borough Council set up a 24-hour emergency number in case the noise got too much.

"We found the first two environmental health sound teams we called out very co-operative and sympathetic, but the third made some comments that were extremely partisan I thought," Mr Lang said. He said that time he and his wife were told that they could get some earplugs.

"It was quite annoying, especially as during the evening there wasn't supposed to be any noise at all in our homes," he said.

Mr Lang also has concerns over the way traffic was managed at the festival. "We were never consulted about the festival at any stage, but when we appealed against the decision to hold it, at Reedley Magistrates' Court, we were told we would be consulted about traffic management policy. That didn't happen," he said.

Mr Lang and his neighbours held a silent protest on Saturday to demonstrate their concern at the number of vehicles using the single track road. Mr Lang said there were far more than there should have been.

"I think the organisers were overwhelmed by the number of cars that arrived," he said.

At the West Craven Committee on Tuesday, borough councillor David Whipp said he sympathised with the residents.

When it came to the festival, he felt very frustrated that legislation meant he could not represent the concerns of the people living in his ward.

He said: "I fully accept that the councillors on the licensing committee went off legislation when they made the decision they did, but I don't think it was an appropriate site and I would say so again and again and again."

A spokesman for Pendle Council said: "The license was applied for in line with the requirements of the Licensing Act. Residents must have been consulted as many of them objected to it."

He added that the 24 hour helpline was the council's usual out of hours console number and was merely providing a service to enable the public to complain.

The complaints were then passed on to officers who were on call throughout the weekend.

The spokesman said: "I cannot comment on advice given out by operators of this service."