Huge clean-up in wake of V Festival
Tuesday 24th August 2010, 11:29AM BST.
An army of 400 litter-pickers was today continuing a massive clean-up operation in the wake of the V Festival at Weston Park.
Rotary and lions Club members as well as scouts again joined contractors to comb the 700-acre site at Weston-under-Lizard and clear away rubbish and dumped equipment.
More than 85,000 people attended the festival on the Shropshire-Staffordshire border to see acts including Kings of Leon and Kasabian. A number of charities, including rotary and lions clubs, joined the clean-up which began yesterday afternoon, with any leftover tents being transported out to help flood victims in Pakistan.
The Rotary Club of Brewood and District was spearheading the collection by volunteers and, while the amount of equipment rescued this year has yet to be totted up, secretary Hilary Grew said about 1,000 tents were collected last year, along with other items such as sleeping bags.
He said all the equipment will be packed and collected by the International Aid Trust for immediate despatch to anywhere in the world.
Police said today the weekend had largely passed without incident, with crime down 40 per cent compared to last year. A total of 1,230 people required medical treatment though none had serious injuries.
Traffic management director Scott Dow said despite horrendous delays of up to three hours on Friday as revellers tried to get onto the site, traffic flow was much improved this year with 10 per cent fewer cars coming into the park.
“Congestion on the M6 has been significantly reduced as well as on other key county network routes,” he added.
Colin Sweeney, Weston Park Foundation chief executive, said: “We’re delighted with another fantastic sell-out V Festival at Weston Park. As always, the event was very co-ordinated by all partners and agencies.
“Despite some rain, overall it was a bright and dry weekend.”
Dawn Woodhouse added: “We have brought V Festival to Weston Park for 12 years now and in that time have built excellent working relationships with all agencies.
“We are very pleased to be able to return to Weston Park year after year, we thank all agencies involved with making V the success it is and look forward to planning 2011 after a good rest.”
By Simon Hardy
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Sheer disgrace, thank god it’s only once a year the scum bags who visit this so called festival are allowed into Shropshire. Next event should be held at granville recycling site, as looks like they enjoy living in filth.
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Relax Mick, life’s too short to be angry at people for having a nice time.
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Completely agree with you Mick, from another Mick.
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Some of those scum your are refering to are my children and I take great offence to that. They have being going to V Festival for the last 7 years and at any event where there are 90,000 people you will get waste scattered. I lot of festival goers this year left their tents, sleeping bags etc behind as they were going to be collected and donated to worthy causes, I understand a lot will be going to Pakistan to help the people their suffering from the devastating floods.
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Mick, get a map, it’s in Staffordshire
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Weston Park Enterprises Limited
Weston-under-Lizard
Nr Shifnal
Shropshire TF11 8LE
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Erm, that’s the postal address not it’s geographical location. Look at an OS map, the Park is in Staffs, the county boundary runs west and south of Weston-under-Lizard. http://bit.ly/9OYsRG. It’s the same as places like Perton which although having Wolverhampton in it’s postal address, is in Staffordshire. In the other direction Crew Green is addressed as Shrewsbury but is in Powys and a different country altogether.
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Mick – muck, mad! Mike, make way, Mick (other Mick) – mate, mellow out! Martin – makes sense!, Max – marginally. Me – mad!!!
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Reading this story makes an interesting contrast with my weekend outing to the Shropshire Game and Country Fair at Chetwynd Park.
This also saw several thousand people enjoying themselves in a beautiful parkland setting – without a trace of litter to be seen anywhere. Hundreds of visitors had well-behaved dogs on leads – any ‘accidents’ were immediately cleaned up by the owners
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Rob, there is no comparison whatsoever between these two events. V ran for 4 days, with near on 100,000 attendees, most of them young people, most of them camping. Game Fair, on two days, only a few thousand attendees, mostly NOT young people, none camping.
If you’ve never been to a major event like V you’ve no idea about the issues involved. The positive side is that about 100,000 mostly young people took the initiative to go and do something useful that weekend, (if they hadn’t I guess you would have mean moaning about them hanging about the streets!) at considerable expense to themselves; most music festivals have very responsible environmental policies with a major recycling operation in place. Vey little waste goes to landfill as they have to pay £150 a ton to do so.
The comments by Mick and Steven are based on prejudice I suspect and reflect the opinion of a section of our community who seem to get their intelligence only from one-sided reports in papers such as the Star I’m afraid.
Having been to six major music festivals myself this summer, (including Glastonbury where all camping equipment left behind goes to Oxfam) I have to say that my experiences have been exceptionaly good in every respect – yes, there’s been litter to pick up at the end but having been there well after most of the crowds have left all that has been recycled before the site is vacated. If the Earl of Bradford was concerned do you think he’d invite V back year after year?
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“If you’ve never been to a major event like V you’ve no idea about the issues involved. The positive side is that about 100,000 mostly young people took the initiative to go and do something useful that weekend,”
Trust me, I’ve been to many major events over the years and have never felt the need to turn the venue into a squalid tip.
As for “doing something useful” they went there to be entertained – it’s a music festival for God’s sake, not a volunteer work camp. What next – would you like us to pay you to sit in a park listening to music?
Like many other correspondents my problem is with the mess, not the event itself. There is no need or excuse for littering, whether at an event or in public places.
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Such a contrast to Shrewsbury Folk Festival visitors, who treat their venue with respect.
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About another 80,000 people aswell in fairness.
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In response to Mick, I take offense at your tone. I have attended V several times yet I am not a ‘scum bag’. Each time, like many other festival goers, including my own children, I dispose of my litter properly and recycle what I am able. I don’t enjoy the litter. There are numerous bins around (albeit frequently overflowing) so there isn’t really an excuse. Have you considered it may actually be your own children, friends, colleagues or Shropshire neighbours acting like ‘scum bags’? Nevertheless, I’m sure the 85,000 or so paying festival goers more than compensate for the ‘filth’ and ensure both Weston Park’s and Mr Branson’s bank balances remain healthy.
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relax… the people who worked there came round and asked if we would like to donate our tents.
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Jesus Mick, have you ever kissed a girl?? sounds like your a barrel of laughs!! 85000 people will create rubbish – simple – plus picking it all up will be the highlight of the Rotary Club of Brewood and District’s year! plus look at all the tents we have now donated! liven up Dick!!
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Hahahahahaha! Brilliant
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If everyone had bag and collected their rubbish it would save people a lot of work.
This would only take a few minuets,and would not stop them enjoying themselves.
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I agree, personally i would take a bag and collect/dispose of my litter properly.
There will always be people dropping litter, sadly you will never stop this.
Really please to hear all tents/sleeping bags will be used for a much needed cause, thats a positive.
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Have you ever seen the state of the Quarry after the Shrewsbury Flower Show…..Disgusting,
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Very true, just this morning I walked through the fields the opposite side of the quarry where they had been using the grass as a carpark – the place is a right mess, all the grass is cut up and mud all over the footpaths with no attempt to clear this up.
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Anyone would think all the moaners on here were having to pay for the clear up, its on private land, whose owner will oversee the cleanup, having raked in Multi Millions in ticket sales/beer/food/ car parking from 90,000 people.
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Not sure how anyone can condone littering or indeed just cite littering as inevitable.
Put rubbish in a bin or take it home with you…or apparently just leave it on the floor and say, ‘oh well, it’s a festival, thousands of people will attend and therefore there will be littering’. What nonsense. Litter doesn’t just ‘appear’. If i can restrain myself from dropping litter or help create, (by the look of the photos), what looks like a land-fill site, why can’t everyone else do the same?
I’m confused.
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This post is litter – pick it up litterpicker!
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what? your own post? ‘This post’. lol
We are discussing whether it is right to litter and whether it is justified ‘because it’s a festival’. I don’t think it is. Seems pretty plain obvious to me. How do people defend the idea of littering?!
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Get a life!
The event is well orchestrated hence the price of the ticket.
There are not enough bins at V anyway, and they are overflowing. Most of the papercups get recycled as people go round picking them up for 10p a cup, perhaps an incentive should be for the plastic?!
When you can but tents cheap enough thats the incentive for leaving them there – at least they get recycled.
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