Not sure if this has been posted already .
Festival will beat the floods
Reading Festival will rock on as planned despite serious flooding in the campsite.
The promise that the show will go on came from festival boss Melvin Benn who tramped the wet fields yesterday to inspect the level of
floodwater from the River Thames.
Mr Benn insisted: 'There is no question. Reading Festival will go ahead but I will have to look at some serious reconfiguration of the site arrangements.â?
He said the field where the arena stands is relatively dry, but around 30 per cent of the campsite is under water.
He added: 'I am sure this flood water will subside fairly quickly ' we have seen it like this in the past. It was very wet in 2003.
'But the land will still be very wet. I expect that by the time we get to the festival date we will still not be able to use 10 to 15 per cent of the camping area.â?
Mr Benn is already planning to use part of the car parking area at Scours Lane for campers and land on the other side of the river at Mapledurham, providing a ferry to carry them across to the music arena.
He said: 'It will mean that some of the festival-goers won't be quite as close to the action as they might like to be, but it can't be helped.â?
Mr Benn pointed out the two large fields in the centre of the site currently under water are the ones that are up for sale, but said he doubted anyone would get planning permission for the site because of the way it floods.
Mr Benn added: 'I am absolutely confident that the festival will go ahead as planned. We have great co-operation from Reading Borough Council and from Thames Valley Police and with their support we will be able to get round this.â?
He also pointed out that if Womad had stayed in Reading this year, it would have been forced to cancel because of the flooding.
The Reading Festival site operators will gradually move on to the site this week to prepare for the event, which runs from Friday, August 24, to Sunday, August 26.
Reading -Official Statement
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- Last Post 29 July 2007
Jo Shields
posted this
29 July 2007
- Last edited 13 November 2023
suicidal_lemming
posted this
29 July 2007
hey jo thanks for this as there has been no mention on the dc part of the site about this, was wondering tho.
bags666
posted this
29 July 2007
i remember the 2003 wetness lol
