Tramlines: Sheffield City Council says clean-up to take weeks after festival rain
Video report by Ben Bason
Council chiefs say the clean-up could take weeks after heavy rain caused muddy conditions at Sheffield's Tramlines festival.
Thousands of fans attended Hillsborough Park at the weekend to see acts including Richard Ashcroft, Courteeners and Paul Heaton.
But the ground was churned up by torrential rain, causing damage to the park which the council said would need to be assessed in the coming "days and weeks".
Cllr Richard Williams, chair of the parks and leisure committee, said: "This year we were faced with unusually wet weather and additional steps were taken by the organisers ahead of the doors opening each day to ensure the event could continue and to mitigate damage at the park.
"Teams from Tramlines and the council were monitoring the conditions throughout the weekend.
"Due to the weather, we expect that additional groundwork repairs will be needed. Tramlines’ ground crew will be on site immediately after the festival to assess what works will be needed, and detail on that will be shared over the coming days and weeks.
"We will support them to get Hillsborough Park back to its usual high standards as swiftly as possible.”
'You would have thought they'd prepared'
While videos from the festival showed some fans making the most of the conditions to create mud slides, some local residents have expressed concern about the conditions.
Sophie Massey, who attended the event, said: "First night the ground was very heavily waterlogged. You'd have thought they'd have pre-prepared things but it wasn't like that. It was bad. The following two days were awful – Sunday was dreadful."
The council said it would take "at least a week" for those involved in the festival to fully vacate the site and "a number of days" to determine what repair work needed to be done.
Crossing paths at the park are due to reopen this week.
Ground crew will start carrying out the groundwork repairs from 31 July.
Timm Cleasby, operations director of Tramlines, said: "We planned for rain and brought in extensive extra measures to meet the challenging conditions and open safely all weekend.
"Our responsibility to return the park to its usual condition for the enjoyment of everyone is taken very seriously by our entire management team. We have already committed the resources necessary to achieve this as quickly as possible."
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