Concerns over two festivals on same site

Concerns have been raised about two music festivals due to take place at the same Wiltshire venue on the same weekend.

Dance music festival Existance has already been granted a license for its event at Charlton Park near Malmesbury, due to take place over four days from Thursday 12 June.

Now, Gemfest – a festival for fans of house, garage, jungle, and drum & bass – has applied for a licence for the same dates in a different part of the sprawling 450-acre estate.

Until last year Charlton Park was the home of world music festival WOMAD, which is taking a break this year before moving to a new location in 2026.

Existance and Gemfest are both smaller events in comparison to WOMAD, which usually attracts tens of thousands of people.

Existance is expected to attract 1,000 revellers, while Gemfest organisers said they expect no more than 5,000 ticket holders.

Gemfest's licence application is due to be decided by Wiltshire Council's northern area licensing sub committee.

During a public consultation, the Earl of Suffolk & Berkshire - the site's owners - said that running the two events at the same time was achievable.

"Both events, combined, are a very modest proportion of that which have been previously across the estate when WOMAD was operating and there is nothing about the overall numbers of attendees, nor the space that is being occupied that appears to me likely to undermine the licensing objectives", he said.

But the council's own environmental protection and control team opposes the application.

In a letter to the committee, environmental health officer Damaris Broad said: "While the noise management plan for Gemfest does not raise major issues, it does not account for noise generated from Existance.

"The introduction of Gemfest will make the Music Noise Levels in Existance's noise management plan obsolete as the noise levels the festival will be attempting to adhere to at monitoring points will have changed due to noise from Gemfest."

The licensing hearing will be held on Monday 2 June at the council offices at Monkton Park in Chippenham.

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