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Students complain over Christian music event during finals

In an emergency motion on Sunday evening, Exeter’s JCR voted in favour of complaining to Oxford City Council about the Love Oxford 2015 event, a concert hosted by three churches on Broad Street that morning. St Aldate’s Church, the Christian Life Centre Oxford, and Headington Baptist Church were the event’s organisers.

The event was advertised as an “open air service”, and 2,500 people took part. There was praying, preaching and singing, with the event starting at 11am and finishing at 12:45pm. However, students reported noise starting from 6am.

The Exeter motion noted the inconvenience to students and the early start of the noise, saying, “Oxford City Council was irresponsible in allowing this event to go ahead in a residential part of the City Centre.” The Exeter motion passed with 14 votes in favour, three votes against, and three abstentions.

The JCR resolved to mandate the President to send an email to the two City Councillors for Carfax ward as well as to the Council’s Environmental Services, describing the noise as “ear splitting” and stating, “I do not know how this event was granted a Undergraduate licence.”

Sam Slater proposed a motion to Exeter JCR stating, “Oxford City Council was irresponsible in allowing this event [Love Oxford] to go ahead.”

The proposed email further stated that “students from at least seven colleges (Exeter, Jesus, Lincoln, Balliol, Trinity, Hertford, Wadham) were affected.”

It ended by saying, “I strongly recommend that in the future it is moved somewhere else and the organisers are told to keep it quieter to avoid significant disturbance when people are trying to revise.”

Sam Slater, who proposed the motion, told Cherwell, “The noise started around 6am, when they were setting up the stage, and got very loud at around 9am when the soundcheck started. It was then pretty much constant until 1pm.”

Slater continued, “The single-pane windows, as well as the doors, were rattling because of the bass, and the singing could be clearly heard in the library too. Many students were studying for finals, others were trying to work, and History students were trying to sleep.

“It was irresponsible for the council to license the event for two reasons: firstly, the noise was completely excessive; and secondly, it is essentially a residential student area in exam season. We believe1 that College was given no prior warning of the event. The reason we put the motion to the JCR was to let the Council know of our complaint so that in the future students in the area can be at least consulted first, or else the event can be moved to a more appropriate venue. Also, one suspects that had this been your average rock band wanting to hold a gig on a Sunday morning they would have been instantly blocked by the council.”

Alice Nutting, a third year undergraduate at Exeter College, told Cherwell, “My finals start in two weeks and the noise outside woke me up early. It also made it impossible for me to revise. My windows and door were shaking. Broad Street seemed like a completely inappropriate venue in light of the noise disturbance; the music was unnecessarily loud.”

Slater reported, “A few of us who complained on the Love Oxford [Facebook] page on Sunday received cards in our pidges from one of the attendees. She says that she wasn’t an organiser, just an attendee, and she felt very bad when she heard that they had disturbed us. A very nice gesture, I think.”

Trinity College is also holding a motion at their upcoming JCR meeting to give the JCR the opportunity to formally express their dissatisfaction with the disruption caused by the Love Oxford event.

Trinity College JCR President, Eleanor Roberts, told Cherwell, “I have received over twenty written complaints about the Love Oxford event.

Overall, these reflect a dissatisfaction with the lack of consideration given to the hundreds of students living in close proximity to the event, and especially to those finalists whose work was disrupted for the majority of the day. The noise, lack of warning and intrusiveness are all subjects of complaint.

“In light of this, we hope to support the work of College to stop the event being held in a similar manner next year.”

The Love Oxford committee commented, “The event has moments of complete silence: this year a moving minute of silence to remember victims of the Nepal earthquake and to pray for their families. It can be also be joyful and exuberant as the crowd celebrates their life together. So Love Oxford can be noisy, but no noisier than the Oxford student balls of which residents receive notice at this timeof year, always asking for understanding as their noise rocks through the nights.

We do regret any inconvenience caused to our neighbours and ask for their understanding as we all try to live together in unity in our city.”

Oxford City Council did not respond to Cherwell’s request for comment.

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