Plan for 10,000 extra music fans

Organisers want to allow 65,000 people to attend the event

Organisers of the Reading Festival are seeking permission to allow an extra 10,000 fans into this year's event.

Promoters Mean Fiddler say they have no doubt there is demand for extra tickets after last year's festival sold out despite the bad weather.

But many local residents disagree, claiming that the current 55,000 tickets is the maximum the area's infrastructure can handle.

The plans go before the licensing authorities early in the summer.

An additional 10,000 seems to be going beyond the limits the area can handle Robin Bentham

Robin Bentham, from the Warren and District Residents' Association, said: "It's mainly a question of has the limit of this site been reached?

"From our viewpoint the site been full for the last several years with 55,000.

"An additional 10,000 seems to be going beyond the limits the area can handle."

Melvin Benn, managing director of Mean Fiddler, said: "We have the ability to accommodate an additional 10,000 people to raise the capacity from 55,000 to 65,000.

"We also have the ability to sell the additional 10,000 tickets on a combined package of either rail and ticket use or national express and ticket use.

"The impact on the local community, such as traffic, will be negligible because the only method of buying the ticket is through purchase of a combined package."