Thin blue line: local police on duty in Lloyd Park issued an apology to residents on Saturday night
Local police issued an apology on Saturday night to residents living around Lloyd Park after the first day of the weekend-long Garage Nation music festival staged in the public park.
The event organisers claimed to have sold out all its tickets to 8,000 “ravers” for its three-stage mini-festival of grime and garage music, drum and bass and jungle, with around 100 acts to perform across three stages, plus fairground attractions, food stalls and bars.
But local residents were angry that they had had little or no consultation from Croydon Council, who licensed the event and stood to rake-in tens of thousands of pounds in fees for the use of the park, sections of which had been fenced off from the public for a week.
Some residents claimed that the first they knew about the Garage Nation event was when they read Inside Croydon’s report last week. Others said that they received no information from the council until just 24 hours before the festival was due to begin, leaving them with little opportunity to make alternative arrangements to cope with the various road closures imposed.
According to some, the Lloyd Park tram stop was closed all weekend, which will have removed one obvious means for festival-goers to attend the event by public transport, rather than driving. Others, though, have questioned the reliability of this information.
Party atmosphere: Garage Nation in Lloyd Park in full swing over the weekend
On Saturday night, Metropolitan Police’s Park Hill and Whitgift local team published a tweet in which they said, “We apologise for inconvenience caused, including parking and noise.
“The council have been enforcing parking and many many parking tickets issued!”
Today, in the aftermath of Garage Nation 2022, a debate began on social media among members of parks friends groups. The event appears to have passed off without major concern beyond the usual grumbles about inconsiderate parking, loud music and incidents of littering and people urinating in private gardens.
The overriding complaint, again, appeared to be Croydon Council’s failure to inform the residents they are supposed to serve.
On Facebook, David White, of the Friends of Lloyd Park, wrote, “Clearly there are things that need to be improved on for future large events in the Park.
All quiet on the East Croydon front: the police tweet issued just before 11pm on Saturday
“However, on the positive side, Lloyd Park was able to host a music festival that attracted a genuinely mixed young crowd from all over south London and beyond.
“Often they will have been experiencing Lloyd Park for the first time. That’s something of which Croydon can be proud.”
But Josi Kiss, who is involved in the residents’ group for Park Hill Park, still had reservations after the first day of the event.
“Let’s hope the organisers, council and police learn a few lessons… Day One’s noise levels were crazy. You could clearly hear the DJs and music in South Croydon, by Ruskin House, a mile away,” Kiss wrote.
“Along with the extreme volume and closed tram stop, those people living next to Lloyd Park had to endure numerous people urinating and even defecating in their gardens and blocking their roads and driveways, despite roads being closed.
“When questioned, those parking said they were performers and allowed to park. The traffic wardens made a fortune for Croydon Council, but didn’t move cars on.
“This poor level of organisation doesn’t bode well for next year when Croydon is London Borough of Culture and more festivals are being encouraged.”
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network- By having a comment section, we provide all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Details of how this works can be read by clicking here
- Inside Croydon works together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as well as BBC London News and ITV London
- Inside Croydon: 3.3million page views in 2021. Seen by 1.6million unique visitors in that 12-month period
It’s the organisers who should be apologising. So-called ‘Garage music’ is noisy, tone deaf and TOO LOUD!!! Chris Myers, Led Zepp fan aged 70 and three-quarters.
I went to go and check on the south side of the park on Sunday late afternoon. The parking was a bit like that on a match day. Heavy, all space taken and some adventurous/dangerous to others parking. The beat obviously incessant close by.
As ever reports of how sound travelled have shown odd impacts of topography. Notably loud in the last hour, I am told.
Not sure if the information about the tram stop at Lloyd Park being closed all weekend is quite right! I travelled on the tram with a group of friends on our way up to the Chinese Restaurant in Shirley Hills at 6pm on Saturday and the tram certainly stopped at Lloyd Park and people got off and on just as normal. In fact we weren’t even aware that anything very special was going on – we just assumed the Fun Fair was still operating.
On our way back at about 9.15pm, the tram again stopped at Lloyd Park and at that time the platform was absolutely packed with revellers who poured onto the tram in very big numbers, They were certainly a very noisy and lively crowd but they all seemed good natured and as far as I could see caused no problems. There were marshalls in high-viz jackets on the platform making sure things were OK – but not sure if they were from Tramlink or were Festival staff. At East Croydon almost all of the festival-goers got off and made a bee-line for trains – one chap told me there was a big “after-party” happening in Brixton.
Curiously, even when we were up on Shirley Hills and went to admire the view out over Croydon from the famous viewpoint, we didn’t hear anything coming from the Festival – not even the dreaded thumping bass that accompanies most of this type of “music”….!
Just my two-pennyworth. No doubt residents nearer the action may have had far more negative experiences.
you make an interesting point. If the music was hardly audible from the Shirley Hills, but unacceptably loud ‘over the hill’ as far as Lebanon Road in East Croydon and Ruskin House in the South, then the amplifiers are pointing in the wrong direction. Re-directing them along the valley floor, towards Shirley Hills would seem like the obvious thing to do. Right?
When my son went to ‘raves’ or to ‘garage’ events in his wild days, these events took place in warehouses or under railway arches in London. He is now suffering from minor hearing loss brought about (he is told) by consistent exposure to loud music. Of course he wouldn’t listen at the time to his oh so boring parents.
Listening, or trying not to, to what passes for music over the weekend it made me ask ‘why is this event being allowed in Lloyd Park’? It appears that DB readings were 20 DBs over the accepted levels, its a park surrounded by housing, the lyrics being blasted out were described as ‘explicit’, and for me, worst of all, this happened on a Sunday. If shops have to close at 4pm, how come boom boom, whup whup etc etc can be forced into our homes?
Obviously this was all about money with little regard for local residents. In the last couple of hours the music levels were demonstrably ramped up, the man shouting ‘whup whup whup’ (why?) was giving it everything he could. someone clearly made the decision ‘they cant stop us now so go for it’.
Garage/house/club/rave music has no place in a public park surrounded by housing. The leaflet pushed through my door the night before stated that a similar event took place in Addington where the organisers liaised with local residents associations. It didn’t happen in this case. Perhaps if there were to be a repeat, this should return to Addington where there were no problems and it was a ‘success’