Freebutt: The council statement

An anonymous commenter on the Freebutt story seems quite upset that No Rock's coverage of the Save The Freebutt campaign hasn't been balanced enough for their liking and demanded to know why we hadn't put the other side of the story. Apparently, only quoting Brighton And Hove Council on the original post somehow doesn't count.

Still, to avoid the Glasgow Media Group being alerted and heading down to investigate the shoddy quality of reporting on a sarcastic music blog, here is the council's most recent press release:

The council has made plain it has no interest in closing down a Brighton music venue over noise problems.

Officials say that while the Freebutt pub near The Level is causing a nuisance to local residents, it feels the situation can be resolved.

In a statement the council said:

“The council doesn’t want the Freebutt closed, isn’t trying to close it and does not believe it needs to close because of noise.

“We have written to the pub asking for a convenient time to visit so that their electronic noise limiter can be reset. We feel that if it was working as expected they could still run excellent gigs without bothering local residents.

“While the council feels live music is very important to the city, people’s right to peace in their own home is sacrosanct. The family home was there when the current management took over the Freebutt so they would have known noise was an issue.

“Their campaign material appears misleading and we have concerns for the feelings of residents. The council has a duty to investigate and remedy complaints on noise and can not be diverted by campaigns such as this.

“It has now been four months since the pub received a noise abatement notice and although the council acknowledges that some works have been carried out to manage the noise, further action is still required.”

The council doesn't actually say why it feels the campaign material "appears to be misleading" - to be honest, the Council and the Freebutt seem to be the same on details; the question is whether the noise limiter could be taken down further without ruining the point of having an event which relies on amplified noise.

So, just in case anyone was under the impression that the Freebutt were in disagreement with another party without, somehow, the other side having a different view of the matter, hopefully that's clearer now.