The stand off between Claremont Council and the Royal Agricultural Society has heightened this week. Now the RAS chief executive, Martin Molony, has hit out at the Claremont Council calling them “elitist”. The RAS leases out the showgrounds to festival promoters and they are already in talks with the Big Day Out promoters to host the event there in 2013. However, Claremont Council are trying to ban festivals because they think they are too noisy and encourage drunks to trash the town.
Speaking with WA Today, Molony said:
(BDO and Soundwave) are at risk of not coming into WA because the showgrounds are the only venue I can think of which can accommodate 40,000 people right near a railway station… Every other local government and state government in Australia openly supports these festivals, because of the huge economic benefits…A small local government should not have the authority to decide whether festivals can come here or not.
Yesterday the Claremont Council president Jock Barker said:
Despite the best efforts of the staff to work with the RAS, promoters and other authorities, the fact remains the impact on Claremont residents is unacceptable and is not getting any better… It’s not just about the noise, it’s about the trashing of the town. We all like music, I grew up with rock and roll, but if people behaved themselves, and noise conditions weren’t breached, you wouldn’t hear a peep out of anybody.
Today Barker let his thoughts be known on Molony’s comments. telling fasterlouder:
Mr Malone’s comments do not represent the facts as they stand. If the sound levels were as approved and the antisocial behaviour stopped, we would have no problems. Many concerts are held and present no problem.
Let’s hope common sense prevails and Claremont Council get pulled into line so Perth punters still get a Big Day Out and Soundwave, considering they already miss out on everything else.
