'Irreplaceable' gig venue fears noise complaints from new flats
A music venue which hosts heavy metal gigs and punk bands has said it feared becoming embroiled in a noise row with residents of a new city centre tower block. The owners of Rebellion on Whitworth Street West in Manchester said they "cannot afford to fight" a legal battle if there were complaints. The application, from property firm Glenbrook, to build a £118m 44-storey development next to the bar has been approved by Manchester City Council.The local authority said it was aware of "sensitivities relating to the proximity of Rebellion to this development, and the potential noise nuisance which could be created in the future" and work was ongoing to ensure a solution.
The venue's co-owner Alex Kostyakov said an appropriate acoustic assessment had not been completed and he had not been consulted by developers. "They did [the assessment] on a Friday and Saturday night and didn't event mention that we're an all-week venue in the planning submission," he said."We have heavy metal gigs on Monday nights, people moving in aren't going to be expecting that," the 31-year-old from Swinton said."If you've got a Sunday off and you're trying to relax in your flat and we've got a loud punk bank playing it's not going to work."It's about quality of life for the resident not just us."
Manchester City Council said a clause in the planning agreement would ensure that work would only begin when it was "satisfied that it can take place without any noise nuisance being detected in future properties".However, Mr Kostyakov, who has co-owned the venue since 2021, said there was no way to know if there would be noise issues until residents had moved in. "The worry is that residents move in and the council turns round and says we have to pay for £50,000 worth of soundproofing," he said."Or if they say we have to be ending gigs at 10, for example, we will lose a big chunk of our income."That would basically be the end of us, we'd have to shut."
'Well-loved locally'
He said he was concerned the venue could end up in the same situation as Northern Quarter venue Night and Day Cafe, which was subject to a three-year legal battle with the council over noise complaints in 2021."Our pockets are nowhere near as deep as Night and Day," he said. "We both have other jobs because running a music venue isn't enough."Mr Kostyakov is calling for an amendment to the planning permission requiring the developer to take responsibility for "any remediation and acoustic works" in future. The BBC has contacted Glenbrook for a comment.The Whitworth Street West development had been approved last month but the application had to be reassessed after the Music Venue True (MVT) submitted an objection on the basis of its proximity to Rebellion.The MVT said: "Rebellion is not only well-loved locally and nationally, it is an irreplaceable part of Manchester's live music infrastructure."It said the risk was "not hypothetical" as there were "obvious correlations between noise complaints and venues closing"."Responsible planning should create places where people want to live because of the cultural life on their doorstep, not in spite of it," it added.
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