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Business News Live Business
Brighton venue to stop live music after receiving noise abatement order
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 19 May 2014
Popular Brighton music venue The Blind Tiger has announced that it will cease staging gigs with immediate effect because of a dispute with a resident living in the same building as the pub which has led to one of those pesky noise abatement orders from the local council.
In a post on their official website, the venue’s management revealed that efforts to placate a neighbour who had complained about noise levels on various occasions since moving in a year ago had failed, and that after said neighbour complained to the local police, Brighton’s council issued a ‘notice to abate a statutory nuisance’ which comes into effect today.
If the venue staged any more gigs it would be in breach of the order, leading to possible court action and a £20,000 fine.
The team behind the independent venue say that they pursued various routes to try and deal with the problem. Simply adhering to stricter noise controls in the venue wasn’t an option, as unamplified drums were enough to cause problems upstairs.
Meanwhile installing sound-proofing would have been a major and expensive endeavour for a venue that had already admitted it was facing a number of financial challenges. A last ditch attempt to help the complaining neighbour find a new home, and for the venue to then rent the property immediately above its stage, also failed.
A petition against the council’s order has already begun, which over 9000 people have now signed. And while any council has a duty to deal with noise complaints made by residents, those opposing the order would presumably raise the point that, in this case, the gig venue came first. To put it in the words of one petitioner: “Only an idiot would move into a flat above a live venue and then complain about the noise. Brighton & Hove Council, don’t pander to idiots, please”.
As previously reported, a similar situation – ie a complaint from one new neighbour leading to a noise abatement notice – occurred at the Night & Day venue in Manchester earlier this year. Meanwhile back in Brighton one complaining neighbour resulted in live music being pulled at the Freebutt venue back in 2010.
Noting that live music has been performed on the site currently occupied by The Blind Tiger on Brighton’s Grand Parade since as far back as the 1850s, and that the space as been a modern gig venue for the last thirty years, the team behind the venue note: “We think the fact that these numbers have not turned out to matter to anyone in a position of power to change this situation, adds up to something rather silly, rather sad, and rather destructive”.
