Festival organisers told to improve traffic control

THE Rewind Festival has had more conditions added to its licence after Remenham residents complained about the noise, traffic and environmental impacts of the event.

Wokingham Borough Council’s licencing and appeals sub-committee has added four new conditions after carrying out a review.

The review was prompted by Ron Emerson, of the Remenham Farm Residents Association, who complained that the weekend pop music festival, which takes place at Temple Island Meadows each August,  caused “disruption and public nuisance” to the village.

Festival producer Steve Porter and director David Heartfield replied that measures were already being put in place to address issues with traffic management that occured during last year’s event. 

Councillors Beth Rowland, Jackie Rance and Mike Smith, who carried out the review after hearing from both sides, decided to make the following additions to the licence:

1. That the wording in relation to white noise be amended to read, ‘White noise beepers will be used on plant and vehicles contracted by the licence holder and best endeavours will be used to require non-contracted vehicles to comply with the same standard operating less than 100 metres from the boundary of residential properties’.

2. Community meetings will be held and convened by the licencing authority, one before and one after the event. The licence holder must attend these meetings and traffic management and sustainability must be discussed.

3. The premises licence holder will employ the services of a dedicated traffic management company to undertake an annual survey of traffic impacts arising from the set up for the event, the event itself and get out of the event.

This company must consult with local residents, businesses and emergency services... and produce a traffic management plan. The plan must be made available to residents no later than three months before the start of the set-up for the festival.

4. That a suitably qualified member of staff to direct the traffic at the junctions in Remenham Lane and White Hill (A413) will be continually present.

The council said it accepted that the traffic management last year “had left much to be desired” and the sub-committee found that it caused “nuisance to the local community in terms of traffic congestion, noise and other pollution”.

John Halsall, a Remenham parish councillor and borough councillor for Remenham, Wargrave and Ruscombe, said: “The sub-committee seems to have agreed with the residents and we look forward to the licensee doing what he said he was going to do.”

Mr Emerson was pleased with the outcome. He said: “We’ve been talking about white noise from the reversing vehicles for a long time. They’ve agreed for all contracted vehicles to use white noise.

“With traffic management, they’ve had marshalls before and they didn’t do anything — one was actually asleep. For us, it’s will it work next time? It sounds like they have agreed to beef it up. They admitted they hadn’t covered themselves in glory last year.”

Mr Emerson said that under the festival’s previous owners, meetings had been held between the organisers and the community to discuss concerns but that these had not happened under the current management.

He said: “Now they’ve agreed to do it, before and after the event, and they will be moderated by Wokingham Borough Council.  We did want representation on the safety advisory group, which agrees all safety isses. They pushed back as they didn’t think it was appropriate due to confidentiality issues but I think we’ve agreed that we will find a way to feed our thoughts into the group.” 

Mr Emerson said that the wider issue of the enviromental impact of the festival was something that would be addressed later.  He said: “The event has a massive carbon footprint. Wokingham Borough Council has a climate emergency policy. We asked a question about the carbon footprint and the council said there’s nothing it could do for now but was something for the future. It was constructive and we’ll see what happens next.”

Mr Porter said: “We had already agreed to many of the requests from the residents and we are delighted that we have been able to reach an agreeable position with all parties. We look forward to working closely with the residents in making 2023 Rewind another success.”