A rave in the forest near Ringwood:

By: Anonymous!

I was there, but the description he gives (the author) makes me wonder if we are talking about the same place...

He says there were 300 people at the rave party. There were more like 1500-2000 people enjoying the countryside, fresh air and freedom. They were having a party.

He says how there was rubbish strewn everywhere. Has he been to the site? No of course he hasn't, because if had, he'd find out that the amount of rubbish left was minimal. We would have liked to leave none, in fact we try to leave areas cleaner than when we arrived. Throughout the night and day teams walked the site picking up litter. All the sound systems had numerous rubbish bins by them. Sadly there was some litter which didn't get picked up, due to the Police serving a Section 63 notice requiring everybody present to pack up and be gone within the hour. It takes a long time to pack away sound systems and get trucks ready to move. There was not enough time for a final litter sweep. If they had given a more reasonable amount of time to leave, there would have been no litter at all.

Broken fences. Again our friends in blue have some answers to give. The police blocked off approach roads to cars and pedestrians. There were hundreds wanting to get in, some of whom had driven from as far as Newcastle. They weren't just going to turn around and drive home again! So they had to go through the forest. It was pitched black in the forest. When people finally reached the site of the party they had walked for about 2 miles through complete darkness. It was inevitable that having walked all this way, suffering cuts, scratches and sprained ankles, that when the flimsy fences were reached, they were not recognised as fences, just as another set of branches and trampled down. The fences were very cheap and not destroyed, merely knocked down. Putting them back up would have taken about 20 minutes and would have been something that we would have done, given more time to leave the site. Had everyone been allowed to use the tracks through the forest, the fences would still have been in tact.

The farmer's hay crop trampled! So what? Hay is grass. When you walk on grass it bounces back after about 3 days. Sounds like Mr. Farmer maybe angling for an insurance claim here, flimsy fences that just slot back into place and trampled grass - blimey, that's hardly a terrible toll after 1500 people enjoyed themselves for the weekend.

Site of special scientific interest next door? It's MOD land. That land was filled with MOD security guards driving and walking all over the place. Who does more damage to land, the MOD or 1500 people having a party next door? Get real on this one, which environmentalists were concerned, name them or are they products of a journalists imagination?

No one likes to upset anyone, but people gathering, enjoying music and company is as old a tradition in this country as any other. There are so many laws designed to stop unregulated freedom and gatherings of people that the number of sites that can be used is extremely limited and not being able to place an infrastructure in beforehand, or to inform the land owner and arrange some remuneration for use of the land is a consequence of the restrictions placed upon us all.

Yes we are responsible for what happened. The problems caused by us are due to the ridiculous behavior of the police implementing the even more ridiculous laws this country feels are needed to stop people having parties.