THE fate of a three-day music festival headlined by Simply Red and Gabrielle is hanging in the balance after dozens of objections from residents.

More than 12 concerned residents living close to Clitheroe Castle attended a licensing meeting at Ribble Valley Council over the Summer Days Festival planned for July.

The event, which has already sold 3,000 tickets, hopes to attract 15,000 to people to the event over the three days.

Residents said they are concerned about parking, traffic congestion, sound pollution and the number of days that the applicant was applying for.

Fintan O'reilly, who's house backs onto a large grassy area of the Clitheroe Castle grounds, said: "The sands are shifting, the original discussion talked about a medium sized event, but now there could be potentially a bigger one.

"It was going to be one event, but now there's going to be this event along with potentially more events.

"It sounded like it was going to be a family picnic, but with things being moved about as we speak this event could end up being something different.

"The licence should have been gained first before tickets were sold to customers."

Applicant Summer Days Live Limited applied to the council to provide entertainment in the form of life music, provide late-night refreshment and to provide alcohol consumption for on the premises only.

The applicant applied for a licence premises which included not only the Summer Days Festival, but another eight three-day events.

These events varied in different sizes and could be put on throughout the year and many of the residents who attended said they were not made aware of this.

Resident Catherine Webster, said: "The proposed capacity of the event is just under 15,000 and that's more than the population of Clitheroe.

"There will be a huge impact on local parking, many of us park on the streets due to the format of the houses and with the large amount of extra cars, residents will lose their parking spaces."

If given the go ahead the event will take place on Wednesday, July 6 and Friday to Saturday, July 8.

Jon Drape, production director of the festival said: "The festival is going to bring into Clitheroe a conservative estimate of £1million.

"This will go through hotels, cafes and B&Bs and we want the festival to be an annual event to help put Clitheroe culturally on the map."

The hearing which was held at Clitheroe Town Hall yesterday, was chaired by Councillor Jan Alcock.

Festival organisers representatives Jon Drape, production director for the festival, Simon Taylor his solicitor, organiser John Tirrell and Steve Leeland, an aria acoustics environmental acoustics sound assessor attended the meeting.

Cllr Jan Alcock said: “The meeting will now conclude and a decision will be made in four days time.”