A row over noise has broken out over this summer’s outdoor concerts at the Old Royal Naval College – with the Trinity Laban music school wanting them to be scrapped because loud soundchecks disrupted their courses.
This year’s Greenwich Summer Sounds shows included concerts from Kaiser Chiefs, Tom Jones, Black-Eyed Peas and Nile Rogers. But Trinity Laban wants the licence to be revoked because of the effect on its own performances inside the King Charles Building, right next to the festival site.
Concerts have taken place at the Old Royal Naval College since 2011, but this July’s shows were the first to be run by the promoter IMG.
Trinity Laban says that its requests for soundchecks to be carried out later in the day were ignored, while the festival took place in a week that it had already planned to hold a series of open days, with an evening performance having to be moved because it clashed with the festival.
It also says that sound monitoring equipment was not installed on its premises as promised, so Trinity Laban had to pay for its own monitoring, which found that noise levels were above what was allowed.
“It is unacceptable for Trinity Laban Conservatoire’s essential educational activities to be disrupted in this way and we would hope that the Royal Borough of Greenwich supports this view,” the application for a review says.
“We are therefore requesting that IMG’s licence be reviewed and revoked.”
Greenwich received no complaints from residents about the event, with an environmental protection officer recommending that IMG should be told to work more closely with Trinity Laban and other neighbours when planning the festival.
Councillors on a Greenwich licensing sub-committee will decide the future of the festival at a meeting next Monday.