An historic stately home near Ashby can now host music festivals with a capacity of up to 5,000 people despite concerns over noise and parking.

At a South Derbyshire District Council licensing hearing on Friday (May 30), councillors granted a premises licence for Crow Park, part of the extensive Melbourne Hall estate owned by the Marquis of Lothian, to the east of the town off Blackwell Lane.

This comes three years after Melbourne Hall was granted permission to host 30 events a year with a capacity of 1,000 people.

Residents feared the impact of another festival, due to already managing the impact of Download Festival, Donington Racetrack and East Midlands Airport.

Councillors approved the plans from Raymond Gubbay Ltd, owned by Sony Music, to be able to host one three-day event per year – for a maximum of 4,999 people.

This would include live music and alcohol sales from noon until 10.30am Friday through Sunday but with no overnight camping, meaning attendees would leave and return should they buy consecutive tickets.

Roger Lowe, on behalf of theapplicant, toldthe hearing that weekend tickets would not be available.

He sought to allay fears that this annual event series would be comparable to another Download Festival, a rock music festival hosted at Donington Park, two miles away.

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Mr Lowe told the hearing: "Download is for 120,000 people, it is a very different type of event to one for 4,999 people.

"The type of event will be comedy nights and music that is compliant with the noise limit (65 decibels), which should tell you something about the sort of music it would be.

"Much of what is being discussed is negative. People are going to be spending money in shops and pubs and that is a positive, that is why many businesses are supportive of this.

"The event type will control what we need to put in place for each event and we will always aim to keep disruption to residents to an absolute minimum.

"Reducing it to one three-day event instead of two and the noise limit are a step towards that."

Mr Lowe said on-site parking would be free of charge and that traffic management plans would be drawn up by the same company that handles Download Festival.

To facilitate these events, two car parks – containing 1,170 spaces – would be constructed on fields to the east of Melbourne, south of Blackwell Lane, close to the historic pool and Johnny Vegas' Field of Dreams glamping site.

Contact information to raise concerns about noise complaints would be published in advance of the events and signs would be placed in the surrounding area directing traffic to the site, along with communication – in advance – about parking on-site for free and before the events start.

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A Melbourne resident who did not wish to be named told the hearing: "Melbourne has a population of 5,264. This event over three days would see the entire population of Melbourne squeezed onto one field in Blackwell Lane. 

"I am concerned about the sheer volume of people that would be trying to get in and out of Melbourne for the event. 

"I would have 4,500/5,000 people coming past my door. I am not sure people on the committee would be happy with that past their own properties.

"This will see 5,000 people leaving Crow Park onto the mediaeval roads of Melbourne. A lot of residents are going to be significantly disrupted by this."

David Mill said the lack of overnight camping turned the issues into access and egress from the site of 5,000 people into three days' worth of impacts.

He said if road closures and diversions are put in place for traffic then this would push the issue elsewhere, saying: "This is an outstanding reason why Melbourne Hall is not suitable for such events. This is ill thought out and with little thought for local people."

Dot Devey-Smith said: "If you have strangers driving into the town it would exacerbate a problem that people living here experience every day. Blackwell Lane which leads to Church Street has incredibly challenging traffic problems.

"Unfamiliar drivers would be coming down this narrow road and you can't require people to park in the parking area provided and there are already very few spaces to park in Melbourne.

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"Residents are going to end up without their places to park.

"These are issues with an historic village built without a thought for cars, as are many English villages."

The licensing panel said they considered the concerns about parking and granted approval to the premises licence on the conditions that details of the nature of each event are provided to residents and the parish council and that a traffic management plan is submitted 30 days before the planned events.

Raymond Gubbay, through RG Live, founded in 1966, details that it has produced and promoted 300 events and sold more than 3.5 million tickets to live events across 50 locations globally.

This includes concerts, music festivals, opera, ballet and illuminated woodland trail experiences at venues including the Royal Albert Hall and Royal Botanic Gardens.