Leeds hails ‘positive’ talks over cash for post-festival clean-up

The city council had to press a small army of street cleaners into action in August after fans leaving the rain-hit festival turned the area around Leeds train station into a sea of mud and abandoned dirty wellies.

Now it has emerged that “positive” talks have been held between the council and event organiser Festival Republic to try to prevent any repeat of the problems in future years. In a statement, a council spokeswoman said: “Discussions on recouping some of the clean-up costs [from Festival Republic] are to be continued.

“We’ve had a really positive meeting with Leeds Festival organisers to discuss their event management plan and contingency arrangements for future events.”

Details of how much the clean-up work cost the council have yet to be made public.

The day after the end of the August Bank Holiday weekend festival saw the main concourse of Leeds City Station become carpeted with mud as out-of-town fans travelled straight from the event’s Bramham Park site to catch their trains home.

Large numbers of wellies were also dumped in roads near the station. Festival Republic has said it sent a team to the station and collected more than 200 pairs of boots before taking them back to Bramham Park.

The council has previously hinted that measures designed to keep the city centre as clean as possible could be made part of the festival’s licence agreement. One idea is the provision of hosing-down facilities at exits from the festival site.