I WAS amazed to read Dr Jack Shelley's comments about the Ball held in Shobrooke Park in June. No doubt he'll be telling us he slept through the whole thing. Clearly he identifies community benefit by the numbers of local people unable to sleep!

The overly-loud sound system used at the recent Exeter University event at Shobrooke Park ruined dozens of people's evenings.

How does the town benefit from such a noise or the traffic difficulties caused by hundreds of people leaving the area, enmasse, at the

same time? As a former DJ I can honestly say that the volume was far too loud. It got louder as the night went on. This was no "evening do", either. The music was thumping in the afternoon and continued until 2am. It seems that little, if any, consideration was paid to the needs and views of local residents. Nobody locally, appears to have known anything about it in the first place, hence the greater surprise and upset caused. I think that some of us at least had expected the din to stop at midnight in line with usual licensing arrangements. Interestingly enough, I have spoken to other locals who live much further away from the scene of the crime than we do and they couldn't sleep either. I can also honestly say that we could not relax until the racket had stopped. There are ways in which volume can be limited, not least by the DJs themselves. There are a number of devices available that can stop the sound getting louder, or above a peak decibel limit and I have worked at events in the past where these were in use. In this case, I understand that the event organiser was in contact with several concerned locals by mobile phone earlier in the night and she promised to turn the volume down. Clearly this did not happen and suggests a cavalier attitude to our needs. Some of us have to work on Sundays and I was not the only bleary-eyed individual fighting off tiredness as I got in my car to go out that morning.

Many local children could not get to sleep and parents had a bad time of it. It is to be hoped that there will never be a repeat of such a bad night and I look forward to Dr Shelley's apology.

Resident of Cromwells Meadow

Crediton