Gunnersbury Park festivals: Defending residents' rights

Graphic of a crowd in front of a large stage as if at a festival.

The Lovebox/Citadel festival burst into residents' eardrums in 2018, shattering peace and quiet in the Gunnersbury Park Garden Estate and throughout Chiswick, bringing anti-social behaviour, a slew of litter and drug paraphernalia as well as thousands of people dominating the pavement outside residents' homes. Cllr Joanna Biddolph produced a 14 page feedback report on that festival and has been campaigning on behalf of residents ever since, lobbying the Gunnersbury Park CIC and its CEO year after year. She will continue to do so until - and only if - the number, impact and aftermath of each and every festival are acceptable to residents. 

Residents have had assurances before that amounted to nothing. The most recent assurance was given by the Gunnersbury Park CEO at the Chiswick Area Forum on 2nd July 2025.

At that meeting, the CEO was disparaging about input from residents but recognised the need to communicate more. On the live recording on YouTube, at around 2:22:50 minutes, his says, "... with respect, dealing with this noise, and it is legitimate, I'm not in any way, but this in some senses is a distraction from that long-term aim. But it may well be, it may well, it may well be the case, that what we have to learn from this is we are simply not communicating well enough to enough of you. That we are making great effort within the charity to do the right thing, that message clearly isn't being heard by so many of you. So the thing I would take from this, Jo, and you have told me this several times, we need to improve our communications so that the lady over there stops calling me a liar and and we can get a degree of trust and respect between us all". 

The minutes of that meeting record that, "He recognised that communication with stakeholders had been insufficient and he committed to improving transparency and engagement. He concluded by affirming the charity’s commitment to doing the right thing and expressed a desire to rebuild trust and mutual respect with residents and stakeholders".  

It was disappointing to discover, less than six months later in January 2026 - and without any communication with residents beforehand - that the park team had applied for a 10 year blanket planning permission for all its festivals, giving residents no say and no oversight, a situation that would be even worse. Residents responded robustly, with over 300 objections and over 20 supportive comments.  

We will continue to hold the CIC to account and to support residents, seeking sustained improvements. 

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