Popular live music venue The Flying Circus, Newark, receives noise complaint, prompting outpouring of community support

A much-loved live music venue has been subject of a noise complaint, prompting an outpouring of support from the community.

The Flying Circus, Castlegate, has for many years hosted live acts from up and down the country and international artists too — including recently Martin Turner (ex Wishbone Ash).

The complaint means that just one more would be enough to prompt an investigation by Newark and Sherwood District Council.

Co-owned by Tony Yale and Andrew Muirhead, the venue has built up a reputation for quality music, real ale and inclusivity, including being a safe space for Newark’s LGBT community and the area’s Steampunks.

A petition, which can be found at https://buff.ly/3DP9OWQ, started by Andrew has attracted 4,538 signatures since it was started on August 3.

Tony said: “We are a live music venue. It’s what we started out to do ten years ago.

“We’ve built up a reputation as one of the East Midlands’ best venues, and we have bands that travel up from London and down from Scotland, that pass through on the A1 and drop in at the circus for gigs, so we manage to get a lot of bands that we wouldn’t normally be able to afford.

“A lot of our business comes from live music, and after the whole covid thing live music has been the reason that people come out and spend money and come into town for us. If that was gone we just wouldn’t be able to afford to keep going.”

The gigs are generally held between 4pm and 6pm on Saturdays and Sundays, or between 8pm and 10pm for night-time performances.

“It’s devastating, the pub is our life,” Tony added.

“We’ve been doing this ten years, we’ve got staff who’ve been with us for years and are our friends. If we haven’t got the hours to fill because we haven’t got the live music on, we’d have to lose some of our staff.

“What the licensing officer indicated to us, was if we get one more noise complaint they will use recording equipment to see how loud it is, and the abatement notice will come based on that.

“[The support] has been brilliant. We knew that we would get a lot of support because our customers show us a lot of love, so we knew it would be good but we couldn’t have even guessed that it would be that good.”

Fans of the venue have also taken to social media to share their support.

One wrote on Facebook: “A huge number of fans of live music spend many evenings at The Flying Circus and you will appreciate our concern that a single complaint warrants a threat of revoking the music license.

“Many people come into our town from near and far to follow popular bands, using many other businesses and creating a vibrant night time economy. Musicians choose to come to The Flying Circus because of the enthusiasm of the management and staff to support and promote live music, and the fans who love it. Recently we've seen performers from different parts of the USA, France, Ireland, the Orkneys, London, Manchester, Leeds, Norwich… the list goes on.

“Newark is a beautiful town and a business that attracts so many outsiders in should be applauded, not threatened.”

Having received queries from concerned people, Newark and Sherwood District Council issued guidance for residents who would like to understand the process and what the council’s role is in investigating complaints.

When a member of the public makes a noise complaint officers of the District Council have a duty to investigate and determine whether the noise is considered a statutory noise nuisance.

For noise to constitute a statutory nuisance it must be a noise which substantially interferes with the use or enjoyment of their home or other premises or injure health or be likely to injure health. The factors that may determine this can include the time of day the noise occurs; how loud the noise is; how long the noise lasts; the reason for the noise; the character of the noise, i.e bass beat or high pitched, how often the noise occurs, your location.

If officers of the district council determine a statutory nuisance is happening or is likely to occur or recur in the future, it is the duty of the council to serve an abatement notice in line with Environmental Protection Act 1990. This requires whoever is responsible for the statutory nuisance to stop or restrict it.

Jenny Walker, business manager for public protection at the council, said: “We have a duty to investigate any noise complaints reported by members of the public, and to determine if it is causing a statutory nuisance under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

“There are clear processes that our officers follow during the investigation of noise complaints, and these are currently in progress in relation to The Flying Circus in Newark.”