Residents give positive feedback on Wild Life festival

Wild Life was held at Shoreham Airport on the second weekend of June for the third consecutive year.

Festival organisers Andrew Cerrone and Richard Black, of SJM Concerts, met with residents on Thursday evening (June, 22) at the Shoreham Centre to discuss this year’s festival and hear how future events could be improved.

Mr Cerrone said: “It’s nice to hear all the feedback. We are doing something right.”

Anita Johal, who attended the festival, said: “I thought it was brilliant.

“I didn’t see anything other than positivity.

“It was great kids having a great time.”

She added that she felt it was ‘really safe’ for her 14-year-old daughter to ‘go off on her own’.

Father Dean Wilson, who attended for one day, said he was ‘really impressed’ by the way the festival was run.

“I was surprised by the lack of litter coming out of the festival site,” he said.

However, he did raise a complaint – echoed by others – about the guarding of the fence enclosing the festival.

He said he saw ‘a bunch of guys jumping over and disappearing into the crowd’.

“That shouldn’t be such a hard perimeter to police,” he said, adding that it particularly concerned him considering the event’s timing was ‘so close to Manchester and other recent events’.

But he added: “That was my only negative experience in three years.”

Mr Cerrone told residents the fence had been slightly higher in the previous two years and assured the issue would be looked into for next year’s festival.

While feedback was generally positive, some brought serious concerns to the meeting.

One resident, who lives close to the festival, complained of having to clear litter from her doorstep, which she said included used condoms and broken glass, before it could be found by her young children and dogs.

“For anyone who lives in the vicinity it was a living nightmare,” she said.

Yet David O’Connell, manager of the Shoreham Allstars who performed at the festival, told organisers he also lived nearby and said: “I didn’t see anything like that.”

He said the Allstars and their families thoroughly enjoyed the event, adding: “From our point of view, it was the best run yet.”