Mendip Hills’ tranquillity shattered by 'unstoppable' illegal raves

Rampant illegal raves in the serene Mendip Hills are wreaking havoc on the lives of residents and businesses, sparking heated debates and pleas for decisive action. The once tranquil Stockhill Wood now echoes with the cacophony of unlawful music events, leaving the community in distress and local businesses in jeopardy.

Despite numerous calls to the police and desperate appeals for intervention, the raves continue unabated, raising questions about the effectiveness of current law enforcement strategies and the urgent need for a robust solution. Speaking at the recent Local Community Network meeting of Wells and Rural, Simon Lancey, a police officer with over 20 years of experience across two forces, attended along with Jason Wyatt.

Both are supervisors for the neighbourhood policing team for Glastonbury, Street and Wells, which covers Stockhill. Representatives from Forestry England, which manages the site, were also present. Lancey acknowledged the guidance set out by the National Police Chief’s Council and the College of Policing on how a police response to an unlawful music event should be. However, he highlighted the resourcing issues around responding to all things in the way they would like to.

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He said: “Wherever possible, we would like to prevent a rave if we’re aware of it happening. Traditionally, many years ago, raves were quite openly advertised, and intelligence was available on where and when they were going to happen. Flyers were distributed, and since the pandemic and Covid, we’ve seen it go quite underground.”

He added: “When we are aware it is happening, we move to a position of trying to dissuade it from getting any bigger, but of course, as hard as we try to stop people gathering, firstly, the very nature of the landscape would dictate that it's hard to stop people covering the ground.

“We can't use the police to cover all entrances and exits, and it also depends on the resourcing available at the time. That being said, once an event is under way, it is monitored by senior officers, both on the ground and at headquarters, in terms of how we are going to respond to this and what the dangers are both to road users, to police officers and the people at the rave in terms of disruption tactics and powers that are available to us by emptying the field of potentially 100 people back out onto the roads that have been drinking, potentially taking drugs, into vehicles is a risk to everybody concerned.

“We can then go from stopping it from getting bigger to waiting for it to disperse naturally. Then certainly the next day when it gets light, visits are made regularly, we gather intelligence as we did last time, and we then look at who attended, what offences we can pick up and then can we use that, the people that attended as intelligence to predict where the next raves are going to happen and then look to prevent that from happening again.”

Nicki Morgans from Forestry England said they would look at boulders and welding locks to secure sites but that as the land is open access, they had a duty of care to ensure emergency services could access it.

She said: “Ultimately, we're quite limited with an open access woodland that we have to maintain access to not only disabled access but also ambulance and emergency services, our contractors, and our staff. So it's difficult to strike a balance with making it secure, but equally, we can't make it like Fort Knox.”

Beth Brennan shared her experiences living in Stockhill. She recounted calling the police before a rave even started on two separate occasions, only for the events to proceed. She expressed her understanding of the limited resources and the need to prioritise officer safety but emphasised that the situation is unbearable.

She said, “We live in Stockhill 365 days a year, making our lives absolute hell. On December 26, ten days after my dad died, a rave caused a member of my family to have a severe panic attack.

“Police turned up before the rave had started. The police officer was extremely stressed. Rave goers were climbing over the crime scene ‘do not enter tape’ put on the bottom of the driveway to get up our driveway into the forest. We get cars turn up, pulling around, and we get people walking up our driveway. We had taxis pulling up.

“It’s not fair anymore. In other counties, we know that rigs have been confiscated by the police. Why is that not happening here?”

She added: “During a Mother’s Day rave I called in a very large patch of blood on one of the paths. Deer stalkers were up, and we stopped them to say it wasn’t animal blood but human blood. I don’t think anything got done about it, and it took ages to wash away.”

Angie Brennan, Beth’s mother, who also lives in Stockhill said: “When this rig is coming out at 2 pm, why can't it be confiscated then? Why can't someone be at that gate and do a couple of random drug or drink-drive tests? The message would soon get through that the police will not be messed with.

“Forestry England can do all they can to secure those forests, but unless the police take action to send that clear message, it will continue.

Angie added: “At the last rave, there was a fire going, and I noticed that someone had tried to light a fire under trees. If there's a wildfire, that will certainly catch people out. And that's my other concern up there—not just the noise but the damage possible to the woodland. If a fire happens to catch there, no one stands a chance.”

Simon Lancey said: “The decision to remove items is made by a superintendent, and that will be looked at. That decision-making has to account for the safety of everyone concerned. If we move in, how many police officers will it take? If you've got 50 or 100 people gathering, I would suggest you need about 75 police officers before you start removing equipment. Then you need vehicles to remove that equipment because it's going to police officers' equipment to do it, and we're just not geared up to do that, especially at a short notice event, for which we have no intelligence.”

He added: “I will go away and ask the question of confiscating rigs. Certainly, if we are on duty as we were last time in Stockhill, we went up with a breathalyser the next day and started flashing it around. Not only did it clear the site quickly, but we didn't catch any drink drivers. They are also aware of that particular tactic, so they make sure they can drive the next day.”

Donna Morrison, who lives towards the back of Stockhill Woods and runs holiday cottages, highlighted the impact of the raves on local businesses, saying there had been three since Christmas. She explained how negative reviews resulting from the raves can harm businesses that work hard to attract people to the area.

She said, “My point is from a business angle. We run holiday cottages, and they’re very good business for the Mendip Hills, which is an area of outstanding natural beauty.

“When you get a negative review, that murders your business. They went online, and they saw that there’ve been three raves since Christmas. So what did they put on my review? ‘This is not somewhere to come if you want a peaceful rural holiday’ It’s a complete disaster.

“I don’t think the police take that aspect seriously because we work so damn hard, and it really matters to us. People writing that so the whole world can see is not great.”

John King from East Harptree spoke saying: “It's not just Stockhill Woods that the raves are taking place. It's Harptree Woods and Rowberrow.

We've had ongoing problems for years. We could probably accept them occasionally, but they’ve changed the frequency of them now. They've gone from every month to once a month and are now every two weeks. It's making all the locals' lives miserable.

“We've had them driving around our fields when it's wet and getting their cars stuck, leaving the gates open with animals getting out. All of us are fed up with it.

“We've been phoning the police, but I’ve not seen any evidence of action. We're having a few PCSOs turn up in a car and just sit on the side of the road, not actually doing some proper policing.”

PC Lancey said, “If you're saying they're happening more regularly, then we can start looking at the frequency. I'm more than happy to look at the way that other forces deal with it. I can talk to my senior officers to see how other forces respond to it and what we can learn from it,, as well as meet with the people most directly affected.

“I'm guessing what it'll come down to is they don't want to send one or two police officers into a field of 50 or 60 people that are intoxicated to seize equipment that could weigh several hundred kilos without the appropriate ability to move it and cart it away safely and quickly.”

The chair of the meeting, Edric Hobbs, expressed his difficulty in understanding why a police service that claims to be big on cybercrime can’t infiltrate the rave organisers' WhatsApp messages and Facebook pages. He said, “I find it hard to fathom that a police service which says it’s big on cybercrime can’t get inside the WhatsApp messages and Facebook pages of a bunch of stoners.”

Simon Lancey responded, “We get into some of them, but then they move because they realise we are there. You can go to Tesco, get a new phone number, and set up a new group immediately. It happens with county lines drug gangs as well. Hence, we have the issues we do. Organising a rave and county lines works in the same way.”