Car park quagmire at music festival cost council £8,000
CLAIM PUT IN WITH INSURERS TO COVER COST OF STAFF WHO HELPED OUT
HELPING to sort out a weather-hit music festival cost a North Wales council nearly £8,000.
More than 50 Gwynedd Council staff were called out to work in a makeshift hostel at a leisure centre after the fields serving as a car park for the Festival No 6 event at Portmeirion flooded.
Heavy rain before and during the popular four-day event in early September caused the Afon Glaslyn to break its banks.
Hundreds of cars were marooned, some for several days, in axle-deep mud on the fields near Porthmadog FC’s stadium on Y Traeth and had to be dragged out of the mud by tractors.
After police and council officials declared the towing of vehicles out of the fields unsafe after dark on the Sunday evening the Glaslyn Leisure Centre was used to house festivalgoers who had nowhere to go and no means to get home.
About 160 people were forced to sleep in the leisure centre as the Red Cross was drafted in to help them. The leisure centre was closed to regular users and the public on the Monday.
A Freedom of Information request by our sister paper the Daily Post revealed the cost to Gwynedd Council for its work during the aftermath of the flood was £7,948.18.
But a council official added it is expected the overall cost to Gwynedd Council will ultimately be zero.
“A £7,948.18 insurance claim has been submitted by the festival organisers which covers all costs incurred by Gwynedd Council, including staff and infrastructure.
“This has been accepted by Festival Number 6 and has been passed onto their insurers and awaiting payment,” the official said.
In all 53 members of Gwynedd Council staff worked at the Glaslyn Centre in Porthmadog on different shifts throughout Sunday night and Monday.
Many festival-goers were angry that their vehicles had been damaged as a result of the flooding.
Festival Number 6 “sincerely and unreservedly apologised” to everyone affected.
During the crisis a festival spokeswoman said the event had used the same fields for parking “without incident for the last four years”.
But Natural Resources Wales (NRW) have said the area chosen for the festival’s park and ride is a “natural flood plain” for the Glaslyn River and is under water “many times a year”.
Festival No 6 founder Gareth Cooper later apologised for the “ordeal” festival-goers had faced and for a perceived lack of personal contact with complainants seeking compensation.
Mr Cooper confirmed the festival remained committed to holding the festival in the region, and thanked local people who came to the aid of stranded festival-goers.
Tickets for this year’s festival which takes place from September 7-10 are already on sale, but no details of where vehicles will be parked have yet been announced.