Anger over new Coventry festival with live music 'weeks after' Godiva

Noise concerns have been raised over a new Coventry festival set to take place later this month. 'Caribbean Reggae Fever' is set to be held at War Memorial Park on the weekend of 20 July.

Organisers applied for a licence to put on entertainment including live music and serve booze at the event for three days from 11am to 10pm. But a local resident hit out at the move according to papers for a city council meeting.

The neighbour claimed the licence bid does not have details of how locals will be kept from being "inconvenienced" by music from the event. They added: "I can attest that it is extremely difficult to play loud music in the park without it inconveniencing the neighbouring properties.

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"For example, during the Godiva festival, every room in my home is filled with noise, making it impossible to enjoy many of the activities one would regard integral to enjoying one’s home, e.g. reading, listening to talk radio, watching a film, have a meal in silence, talking to friends or to other members of the household. This makes for a highly stressful environment."

They said the new festival will "inflict three more days of this for nine hours each day" and come in the wake of Godiva festival, which took place from 5 to 7 July at the park. The letter continued: "Given the cumulative nature of the stress caused by intrusive noise, this would be exceedingly hard to bear.

"I therefore object in the strongest possible terms to this event." The new festival is backed by Coventry council and the West Midlands Combined Authority.

It was awarded £250,000 in Commonwealth Games legacy funding earlier this year. The event is billed as an annual celebration of Caribbean Culture which "showcases the contribution the community has made to the cultural and economic growth of the city whilst reflecting Coventry's status as a city of peace and reconciliation."

The festival starts with a parade through the city centre to the park on the Saturday. It will feature a funfair, stalls, football tournament, music stages and the Windrush exhibition.

Coventry council officers say the licence bid should get the go-ahead because it has a "comprehensive" operating schedule and has offered conditions to make sure the licensing objective of preventing public nusiance is upheld. This includes a safety management plan for the event with a range of policies and procedures.

City councillors on the licensing committee will have the final say at a meeting next week, 16 July.

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