The Isle of Wight Festival has had an amazing run of luck with good weather, but this year, as those who went will tell you, there was heavy rain for the first time.
The main fields that the actual festival is held on (rather than the camping), is council-owned land, normally used by Islanders for sports or recreation.
Following the severe rain over this weekend and the tens of thousands of Festival goers walking around the site, much of the publicly-accessible land has turned from grass to mud.
Council agreement
Back in 2009, Cllr George Brown, signed an agreement on behalf of the council with Solo, the Festival’s promoter. Part of it included clauses ensuring that Solo, not the council, was responsible for “reinstating the site to its pre-event condition.”
(The agreement is embedded at the end of this story for your convenience)
At the time, some people questioned the council’s wisdom at signing the deal. Today, with the muddied state of the land, those people might have a different view.
How long will the fix take?
Under the agreement, Solo have the whole site until next Sunday, even without damage to the land.
In the case that it needs to be repaired, the agreement says that, “In a normal year,” the parks have to returned, repaired, “within six weeks following the event.”
“Exceptional conditions” mentions October & December
There is a clause for “Exceptional conditions,” which is considerably longer. This states that, “to a programme of works agreed with the Council, that two senior football pitches are available for use by the Council with effect from 1 October following the event.”
The agreement then goes on to say, “Such programme of works shall be sufficient to have the site significantly reinstated by the end of December following the event.
Solo say …
We got in touch with Solo this morning, after a number of Islanders contacted VentnorBlog.
Solo told VB, “We are very fortunate in the way the site is drained. The works that have been undertaken by the council and the land owner over the last 5 years ensure that the site is drained properly and subsequently dries out very quickly.
“Solo will be working very closely with the Isle of Wight’s Park’s department to ensure that the site is restored to its former self as quickly as possible.”
We asked Solo how quickly that might be, but they declined to be drawn further at the moment.
We also asked the council Press Office first thing this morning for their view but VB hasn’t, at the time of publishing, had a reply.
Update: We heard the following from the council at 13:11
John Metcalfe, Deputy Director for Economy, Tourism and Leisure said “As part of the agreement for the use of Seaclose Park, the event organisers are required to return the ground at Seaclose to the condition it was prior to the festival. This will be done at no cost to the council.
“As we are dealing with the reinstatement of grounds some areas will take longer to repair than others but the key will be working with Solo be to agree a programme of the works to take place following this weekend’s event.
“The condition of the site will be assessed at the end of Solo’s hire period (Sunday 19 June) after which time we will agree the works to be completed.
“I do not anticipate there being any problems in providing football pitches for the coming season.”
Jolly photos on the way!
Enough of that rain stuff, we’re planning to put out a collection of jolly, sunny Festival pictures later today.
(Did you know? – You can view the document below at full-screen simply by clicking on the left-most graphic, to the right of the Scribd word, on the grey bar at the bottom of each document.)
