Email Points to clarify for Mount View Residents

1. Excessive noise over a 5 day period is an assumption & not true. We won't be using any loud machinery & the only major temporary structure will be the main stage. This is already assembled & is towed in by a small truck & placed into position.
   
   
   
   
2. We agree that this district is lovely in all it's distinctive characters, it's what drew us to using the area in the first place. as it's a far cry from the Sydney city hustle & bustle. In reality we are asking you all to share it with us for 3 days out of the 365, we don't think it's asking too much & ask you to re-think your position.
   
   
   
   
3. As far as logistics go, Cedars view have a full size gas tanker drive down Mitchells road, enter the property, re-fill all villas over the property & leave without any drama. This has taken place for the last 5 years at least. A fully loaded LNG tanker weighs 44 tonne. There is also a range of vehicles big & small which enter the property without incident all year round.
   
   
   
   
4. Unsavoury behaviour ? This again is just an untrue assumption & to be honest not very fair to do so. We are both 31 & 33 years of age & much of our crowd are the same. There will of course he a bar serving cold beer/wine & some spirits + we have a no drugs policy at all our parties in Sydney. this festival will be no different. As per our planning we see no consequences for any residents. Security have been hired at a rate of 1 guard per 100 & will be adequately spread out around the perimeter ensuring no one is to go anywhere near Mitchells Road once entered. We've also ensured no one is to go anywhere near neighbours fence perimeters ( we will discuss with bordering neighbours)
   
   
   
   
5. Our event marketing & ticketing is solely being done in Sydney, we don't expect any attendees to be from the Cessnock area besides those we've included & hired locally to help with the organisation & running of the festival. Assuming people attending this festival will be "undesirable characters", engaging in bad behaviour or causing "serious trouble", again is not fair & just another negative assumption.
   
   
   
   
6. As per above, many trucks & cars use the surrounding roads to access the property all year around. they seem to cope. We're planning to sign post along mount view road with " drive to conditions" & " unsealed road ". this will all be posted in all our final marketing, website & all other possible channels also. We originally had our DA in for 3000 & 5 years, even though we were only ever going to do 1500 people in our first year. The DA has now been changed to 1500 & for 1 year to accommodate neighbours concerns & at the owners request.
   
   
   
   
7. We're not aware of your DA [omitted in the interests of privacy] & has nothing to do with us.
   
   
   
   
8. Residents will be able to access their properties as per normal as per the traffic management plan we had produced by " Vigilant Sale Services". This company are the same company supplying traffic management to Stereosonic Music Festival in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide which are dealing with 50.000 people a day entering their festival. Parkability.com have assessed the 1500 people attending & stated that 468 parking spaces are needed. They have also assessed the land on the property & we have appointed our car parks with adequate space. Any cars entering the property will do so without being stopped & will be ushered into a parking space by the Rural Fire Services/SES people. They will then leave their car & tickets will he checked afterwards on foot at a ticket gate. Therefore we see no reason why there will be any build up of traffic on any road. We originally had our ticket gate at the mouth of the entry to Cedars Mount View property, but have changed this due to neighbours concerns of traffic build up.
   
   
   
   
9. We've contacted & met with SES & RFS prior to submitting the DA & all seemed fine with the proposed event & gave their in kind approval.
   
   
   
   
10. We truly believe one event per year will not affect the valuation of any homes within the area.
    
    
    
    
11. To think that anyone would spend 116k on planning an event for 1500 is incomprehensible & would be crazy. We've spent close to 20k on the planning of this event & the estimated final cost is close to 116k.
    
    
    
    
12. We've spent endless unpaid hours over the last 6 months putting this DA together. hence the council have commented that it is well put together. We're thrilled they can see the time & effort put into it.
    
    
    
    
13. The lack of communication to neighbours from ourselves personally, in hindsight, was an oversight on our behalf & for this we do apologise. As far as the comment about 200-300 people, we have no idea where that came from. We had always been organising/budgeting on 1500 people for 1 years, then during the DA process as per any business growth for the future, we thought it better to put it in for 3000 & 5 years via our discussion with the Council at our pre-DA meeting . As per above the 1st year was only ever going to be 1500 people & then we would gauge our growth over the years to come. It has been mentioned about "non-existent" contact which we're not sure how that is possible, the caretakers of Cedars Mount View ( Bree & John) volunteered to help us (as they are your neighbours & we live in Sydney) by going around to neighbours with a consent form & a brief description of the event so everyone was aware. The full DA was also not finished at this point.
    
    
    

There are a few terms within this email which depict us to he deceitful people & other words to the same effect. Believe us when we say we've never done anything intentionally within the organisation & preparation of this DA. or towards neighbours & the council EVER. Things have changed along the way & i think this is just natural when organising such an event over a long period of time.

We hope that some of your concerns within this email chain we received have now somewhat been cleared up & as neighbours of the community please accept our sincere apology about us not contacting you sooner & clearer with all of the above, it was never our intention.

It also should be mentioned that Huter Valley Wine & Tourism have conducted research & identified that they need to target the 25-35 year olds which is exactly the target market for all our events.

We'd love nothing more than for all of you to withdraw your submissions to council & to give your blessings to share this beautiful land for 3 days in 2014.
It's six months worth of work & $20.000 down the drain for us if for whatever reason you don't want to, we'll respect your decision either way.

Thanks for your time

Cheers Kerry Wallace & Matt Weir