Outraged residents of Wrexham are saying they’ll never attend V-Fest again after campaigners were prevented from collecting abandoned tents for redistribution to homeless people.
Campaigners from the group ‘Help Wrexham’s Homeless’ (HWH) had travelled to the festival site last Monday morning – a 90-mile round trip taking upwards of 3 hours – in a bid to obtain tents and camping gear abandoned by departing campers.
After festival-goers had left and they were given the all-clear by festival security, campaigners were delighted to have gathered around a dozen good, useable tents along with camping chairs, airbeds and other equipment.
They were then approached by a man claiming to own the field, who demanded that they drop everything that didn’t belong to them. The ‘owner’ was flanked by another larger man and threatened the activists with police if they didn’t comply.
The group pleaded with the man explaining that the items were for the homeless people of Wrexham but the man responded, ‘Let the state provide for them’.
However, as the group later discovered, the Weston Park site of the festival is not owned by anyone. It was gifted to the nation in the 1980s by the seventh Earl of Bradford and is managed by the Weston Park Foundation.
The identity of the individual who deprived the homeless is unknown, but he appears to have been as dishonest as he was mean-spirited. Some on the HWH Facebook page have claimed the tents were taken by people contracted to clear the site, with a view to selling them at car boot sales around the area.
Angry group members have called for a boycott of V-Fest by Wrexham residents if the situation is not remedied.
V-Fest and Weston Park have been contacted for comment. HWH has a crowdfunding page here.
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HWH currently appealing for a wheelchair for a homeless girl.
I’d have told him to get the old bill – with or without proof of land ownership. Land ownership would means he owns the land – NOT what’s on it.
And if they had the ok from the site security…
But I wouldn’t abandon going in future. If anyone turned up next time, film them claiming to own the land. Film any threats and/or intimidation, show it to the plod and stick it on youtube or other social media.
They had a contract to clear the site and obviously didn’t mind bending the truth in order to make as much extra cash on the side they could. Meanwhile I’ve found police generally very unhelpful in this kind of thing, they generally take sides with whoever seems to have some kind of legal right, i.e. the official clearance people, because it’s easiest and they tend to dislike anyone who challenges authority! That’s why they always side with bailiffs – regardless of the back story. My son and his pals were threatened with a charge of burglary once, when only about 13yrs old, for rummaging through a skip of discarded items thrown out from a burned down skateboard warehouse. “Legally” still the property of someone else you see….