Posts
Venuewatch: No Butt? Yeah, but, no but...
Brighton's Freebutt, which was taken into fan-ownership a year ago, is locked in what might prove to be a battle to the death.
Despite having fitted a noise limiter, the venue is still upsetting its neighbours; they have complained to the council and now Brighton And Hove are telling the 'butt to keep things more quiet, or lose their licence.
A Brighton and Hove City Council spokesman said it did not want the venue to shut but that residents' right to peace was "sacrosanct".
Sacrosanct, eh? That's an interesting principle the good people at the council have introduced there, and one which might make any activity which disturbs a single person impossible in the city. They're going to have a hell of a time digging up the roads in future, for a start, aren't they?
5 comments:
I love Brighton's music scene, and I love the small independent venues that make Brighton the place that it is.
Unfortunately however, the Freebut has consistently refused to comply with reasonable requests made by local residents and the council regarding acceptable noise levels.
The threat of closure has only come following an almost decade-long battle to try and get the management to compromise and keep noise levels to a reasonable level given that it is situated in a residential area.
The current management were completely aware of this situation when they took over- and though they say they have fitted a limiter, the noise levels are still outrageous.
Nobody wants to see the venue shut down. Those commenters who are defending the freebut, think for a second and try and have a bit of humility before you attack those that have spent years living with this situation and trying to come to a fair solution for everyone.
I fear Mr/Mrs Anonymous is not telling the whole story.
The Freebutt fitted a noise limiter and since the new management have taken over there as been ONE official complaint in the year. That's down from 4 or 5 complaints per year for several years previously.
There is just one resident, in an adjoining property, that has a problem with the noise.
The owners enlisted acoustic experts, at their own cost, to help them identify the source of the noise leak into the property and fit appropriate sound proofing to stop the noise once and for all.
The owners of the property will not let the owners, nor the acoustics company, any access at all (chaperoned or not) to their property to find out what's wrong and fix it.
After months of delaying, and having told the Freebutt that everything was fine, the Environmental Health Officers gave the Freebutt a mere 10 days to sort it - impossible if they can't even investigate the problem.
Here's the Freebutt's side of the story: http://savethefreebutt.blogspot.com/
(I'm in no way affiliated with them)
It seems that openid has access to a lot of 'facts' considering you are not affiliated to the Freebutt. Have you also the same access to the council and those making a complaint?
If so perhaps you could present their side of the story as well. Just because the Freebutt say something is true doesn't mean it is, personally I'd like the whole story and not just half or a third of it.
I'm not affiliated, but I've read the Freebutt's press release and spoken to a few people involved.
The Freebutt say they got an FoI request to see how many complaints were lodged against them. It was one.
I fail to see how the resident refusing access can be anything other than a stubborn ruse to get the venue closed down.
openid - I repeat my early question "Have you also the same access to the council and those making a complaint?"
You say you've spoken to people involved so have you spoken to the council and those making a complaint? If you haven't then I fail to see how you can have the full story.
Post a Comment
As a general rule, posts will only be deleted if they reek of spam.