Residents call for action over impact of Rewind South festival on Remenham

Lawyers representing neighbours and organisers have came together to discussion the impact a big festival has on a Wokingham borough village.

The Rewind Festival has a focus on music from the 1980s, with many original performers taking part. It is held annually in Remenham, although it is labelled as Henley in its marketing.

Neighbours submitted objections to the borough council over traffic concerns and its impact on the environment.

At a licensing committee meeting held in Shute End offices on Friday, April 27, Remenham Farm Residents Association (RFRA) were able to express their concerns.

Leo Charalambides, Kings Chambers licensing lawyer commissioned by the Remenham Parish Council pushed for a series of conditions to be imposed on the event.

One of the suggestions was for a RFRA representative to be present at a council hosted safety advisory group (SAG), which provides a forum for discussing and advising on public safety at an event.

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Mr Charalambides also called for the festival to hire a traffic management company to effectively manage the road network surrounding the site during the event.

In a conversation outside the meeting, Cllr John Halsall (Conservative, Remenham, Wargrave and Ruscombe), a member of RFRA, said they were seeking a number of conditions.

That included the publication of an Environmental Impact Assessment, which binds the organisers to assess the environmental impact of the event and lay out how they seek to mitigate that.

Cllr Halsall said: “The borough has a climate emergency, therefore it’s something any organiser should seek to produce.”

Neil Brown who lives near the site called for reversing horns other than those that emit white noise.

Objectors also highlighted how Remenham is a village of 500 people, with the festival taking in approximately 25,000 people per day.

Phil Crier, lawyer representing the festival, argued imposing conditions would be restrictive.

Mr Crier said: “The whole festival relies on trust. It relies on trust with the licensing authority, the responsible authorities and then you run the event and have your debrief afterwards.

“We’re happy with that debrief element. We’re happy to engage with the residents and ask ‘did it work’?

“We’re not being uncooperative here, we’re not dismissing the residents, we know they have a part to play, but it’s not the kind of situation where you can have an event run by committee.

“We’ve just got to run the event, have an element of trust and engage with them [the residents].”

The licensable activities at Rewind South include live music performances, late night food provision and alcohol sales, with the main arena closing at 1am on Friday and Saturday and midnight on Sunday.

Summing up, Mr Charalambides conceded the organisers wanted to work with the community but were rebuffing concrete conditions.

He said: “What they are not agreeing to, and it’s telling that they are not agreeing to, is to have any conditions.

“We don’t want to be bound by anything, we don’t want any obligations whatsoever, just take our promises for it. And you can see why promises don’t work when we saw the interaction between the operator and the residents.

“Promises don’t work because neither party understands what they mean, you need the prescription, and you need the condition in order to tie the parties down so everyone knows what’s required of them.”

A decision will be made by councillors Beth Rowland (Liberal Democrats , South Lake), Mike Smith (Liberal Democrats, Maiden Erlegh) and Jackie Rance (Conservative, Shinfield South), who have the power to imposed conditions on the licence.

According to Wokingham Borough Council protocol, the decison was made on the day but kept private until an official decision is served, which typically in five days.