20/08/2026
Last Saturday an event was held at the Community Centre which caused considerable disturbance to residents of The Parks.
We want it to be clear that the hirer mislead us as to the nature of the event. The booking was made for a “family gathering” of around 30. Had we known what their plans were we would never have accepted the booking.
A number of our conditions of hire were breached, most notably with the sound system set up in the garden and the use of a barbecue. We are clear to hirers that amplified music may only be used in the hall, that if it is used the garden doors must remain closed, and it must be kept at a level where it is not audible to our closest neighbours.
On this occasion the hirers were uncooperative and did not lower the volume in response to many complaints. Eventually after a number of neighbour reports the police attended. To our surprise they said they were unable to shut the event down - they also advised us that turning off the power to the centre (which we suggested) was likely to lead to an escalation of the confrontation and a potential safety risk to our volunteers.
As volunteer trustees we can only apologise and stress that it is always our intention to be respectful of our neighbours - many of whom are volunteers at or users of the centre themselves.
As a result of this event we are reviewing our process for scrutinising booking requests. It may be that we can simply no longer accept bookings past 6pm other than from community organisations well known to us. We are also investigating limiters to cut the power automatically when excessive sound levels are detected - we do already have a limiter on our own sound system but that was not being used on Saturday.
