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Description of 39-B Leeds Music Festival - Press Cuttings

1. - 16. Press cuttings about the Leeds Music Festival starting with reports of violent behavior by participants at the Temple Newsam event with Police being called in to quell the trouble.
Local councillors and dignitaries were calling for the event to be scrapped after 3 years of violence at Temple Newsam.
Leeds City Council had no legal grounds to cancel the contract Mean Fiddler (the promoter of the Festival) had but could refuse the event an Entertainments Licence.
Residents were angry when eight teenagers convicted of drunken violence were given community punishment rather than a custodial sentence by the Crown Court.
The press voiced its concerns over moving the Festival to Bramham and stated that moving venues wasn't the solution to the violence at the event.
The press had a field day stirring up anti-festival resentment amongst the residents of the villages near to Bramham Park, with much of the attention paid to the reactions of the denizens of Bramham itself.
Further press coverage highlighted the fears residents of Bramham had with noise levels, traffic, drunken behavior, criminal activity and general disruption to village life.
The owner of Bramham Park - Nick Lane Fox replied by stating that money was needed by the Park for much needed repair work.

Bramham Parish Council objected to the event taking place in Bramham Park but it went ahead as predicted. At a post event meeting of the PC with Mean Fiddler, the PC decided to accept a donation for village causes of £10,000 obtained from the sale, to residents on the electoral roll, of event tickets. A similar amount was presented to the village of Thorner also close to Bramham Park.
This ticketing scenario caused friction and resentment amongst local villagers, event goers and was the subject of much press comment.

The fund still exists and more information can be found on the Parish Council's website bramhamparishcouncil.gov.uk/community-fund/ - note Mean Fiddler is now known as Festival Republic. The fund has been beneficial to many worthy causes in the village - this Archive project being one such.
The final press cuttimg highlights the relief of the local residents that a large police presence and better crowd control in the event delivered a relatively trouble free weekend. Some problems arose in the event itself but were quickly resolved and the promoters were confident that lessons would be learned for the future.

As a resident of Bramham I was as apprehensive as anyone when learning of the Music Festival on our doorstep. However over the years since its inception, I and I'm sure many others have been pleasantly surprised with the lack of disruption to our lives before, during and after the event. Noise levels are monitored and controlled, we see very few event goers in the village and the only tangible disruption or inconveniences we suffer are when using roads local to the park.
As such we know which days are likely to be busy and make other arrangements to our travelling habits.