international news _ 9th May, 2007

Police Renew Glastonbury No-Go Zone (Again)

Text by Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)

West Country police are urging ravers to stay well away from Glastonbury when the upcoming music festival takes place in June, warning they'll be on maximum alert against anyone planning free parties.

"The message from the police is simple - don't bother," Avon and Somerset police's head of operations, Chief Superintendent Lawrie Lewis told the Yeovil News this week.

"We are ready and will use the laws at our disposal to prevent people causing noise and nuisance to our local communities."

In 2002, up to 100,000 ticket-less music fans descended on Glastonbury to try and jump the festival's perimeter fence or attend the massive free parties that traditionally took place outside the fence, though increased security that year meant many were displaced to raves at locations such as at Smeatharpe Airfield. The abandoned Second World War airfield was previously best known as the location where US paratroopers boarded planes for the D Day landings (as immortalised in Band Of Brothers) though last year attracted additional media attention when cops declared a five mile exclusion zone for the duration of Glastonbury.

"Anyone who is thinking of coming to Devon or Cornwall to arrange an illegal rave is warned that we are prepared to stop them," Inspector Norman Amey of Honiton Police told the North Devon Gazette at the time, "We have the powers to stop these illegal gatherings and to seize equipment, and will do so if necessary," he threatened.

Meanwhile in East England, Norfolk Police launched a massive overnight operation to track down a rave in Thetford Forest last weekend, after Suffolk cops spotted a convoy of young people driving into their area. The cops reportedly trawled the region's backwoods extensively before eventually discovering the party in a hidden away country lane.

"Officers from Norfolk searched the area and though several large groups of vehicles were seen at various locations there was no sound of music in the area at that time," the Norfolk Gazette reported. (EPD24)

"Following further searches, music was detected coming from an unpopulated area of the forest."

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