Croydon residents are frustrated after partygoers parked in front of their driveways and urinated in gardens as thousands of people descended on their local park for a two-day festival.
The One Dance Festival organised by Garage Nation took place in Lloyd Park on Saturday and Sunday.
The stage bordered Lloyd Park Avenue near the tram stop. Locals complained of loud music, people chaos and litter in the aftermath of the two days.
Garage Nation organisers said they sent out an initial letter in July and just a “small number of roads” received it with little notice.
Victor and Eleanor Coleman, who have lived next to the park for 26 years, said the event should have happened further into the park, which doesn’t back onto homes.
Mr Coleman said: “We arrived home after a trip away and they were setting up. We knew absolutely nothing about it but overnight on Friday we got a letter.”
The letter said the event would attract 5,000 people on the Saturday and 4,,000 on Sunday.
It also offered neighbours free tickets to the festival and said the road would be closed off.
Mr Coleman added: “Thousands of people who were fairly tanked up were being directed up the road after the festival, there were people inhaling nitrous oxide from balloons and people urinating.”
He also said there was a man passed out in the street “half naked”.
Four days before the event, local councillor Jade Appleton tweeted that residents were concerned about a “lack of engagement” from festival organisers.
The festival’s stage was opposite Fadhim Sadek’s home, who felt the music was too loud for a residential area.
He said: “They were supposed to have closed off this road for residents but cars were coming through and parking, blocking people’s driveways.
“In general they should have pushed the whole event back, this isn’t a small park.
"When they were setting this up it was a glaring issue, the stage was right in front of our house, this is a family residential street.
“On both nights, when the festival finished, there was a lot of people congregating and urinating on people’s walls and on their drives.
"There were people sitting and smoking weed on people’s walls. It has been a shambles.”
One local man, who asked not to be named, said he didn’t have a problem with the revellers just the lack of communication from the festival organisers.
The 41-year-old said: “We didn’t know about it until it landed here. The people that were there were all cool and pretty well behaved but it is the wrong place.
"There are other parks in Croydon where you are not near anybodies houses.”
Another 64-year-old man said he can put up with the noise for a weekend but thought there could be more security at the end of the festival.
He said: “My daughters went there and enjoyed it, I wasn’t too bothered, it is just a once a year thing and it’s nice to see people having fun.
“If they hold it here again they should have more volunteers standing along the pavement when people leave.
"A couple of guys came into my garden right behind my car, I thought ‘what are they doing in my garden?’ I think residents would be happy if they knew there was some sort of guard next to their houses.”
But 83-year-old Dympna Richardson said despite the heat she had to keep her windows shut when the event took place.
She said: “It was traumatising for the two days because the noise was so heavy going.
"I would have gone somewhere but I was frightened to leave the drive, you might not be able to get back in.
“It is not the type of place to have the like of that it was so disrespectful for the people living in this residential area.
"I hope that the message gets through that this isn’t the right place.”
A spokesperson for Garage Nation said noise was kept within agreed levels.
They also said they received positive feedback from some locals on litter picking.
The spokesperson said: “Should we return to Lloyd Park we would like to ensure local residents we will engage with them immediately and regularly to address any concerns and look at ways of mitigating these.
"We have also received a large amount of positive feedback regarding our management of the event, measures put in place to deal with the hot weather such as stopping ticket sales under our available capacity and our free residents ticket offer.
“Two letter drops were done, one to immediate residents early July and one to a much wider area the week of the event with the contact details for any on the day noise or litter issues.
"We are aware some residents said they did not receive the first letter, however we received a spike in resident tickets requests after it went out giving us confidence it did land.
“In response to this and with how important the delivery of the wider letter was with the contact details on, we used our own staff and personally supervised the delivery of this letter rather than using a company which is why a small number of roads would have only received it a couple of days before the event as it took much longer to complete.”
On social media, some locals complained that the Lloyd Park tram stop was closed off for locals.
But TfL said the stop remained open throughout the festival but some had to walk around cordens for the event.
Mark Davis, TfL’s General Manager for London Trams, said: “We worked closely with the organisers of the dance festival at Lloyd Park to ensure London Trams could manage the expected higher numbers of people using our services.
"Additional trams operated a shuttle service between East Croydon and Lloyd Park to provide extra capacity and TfL staff were on hand at Lloyd Park Tram Stop to ensure everyone could travel safely.”
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here