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No signs of 'massive illegal rave' on Raven's Ait

10:59am Sunday 8th March 2009 in News By David Lindsell

No signs of 'massive illegal rave' on Raven's Ait No signs of 'massive illegal rave' on Raven's Ait

Reports of a massive illegal rave at the abandoned wedding venue on Raven's Ait island appear to have been overblown.

Firefighters were warned up to 400 people could turn up.

But if there was an illegal rave, few signs of activity could be seen this morning.

Four children could be seen playing with two white dogs on the grass at the southern tip of the island.

Boats moored up next to the island including a houseboat and smaller boat with a Jolly Roger skull and crossbones flag.

Another rainbow flag was flying from above the building.

One woman was able to shout across the river from the island and said: "It wasn't a party. It wasn't a rave. It was a cinema night and it went very well thankyou."

Police said the island landing was not likely to be a criminal matter.

Officially the site now belongs to insolvency firm Wilkins Kennedy, after the previous owners went into administration, and any money from a future sale would be owed to the debtors.

One engaged couple lost £12,500 when their dream wedding on the island was cancelled.

The administrators could not be contacted this morning.

Comments(4)

Fred1 says...
3:52pm Sun 8 Mar 09

Well you don't say. Seems a bit far fetched that you'd be able to get that quantity of people (together with their cars plus the sound system kit) across the river somehow for such a "rave", when there are several other more obvious locations with better trunk-road access nearby, such as Tolworth Court Farm Fields, or Ockham Common / Wisley Airfield.

Not for a moment suggesting I'd *like* to see big raves in such places, heavens above no, but the point is, accessibility and logistical factors *do* make a difference to a site's vulnerability to "massive illegal raves".

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DB says...
12:36pm Mon 9 Mar 09

Who is actually on the island now? References to 'Jolly Roger' and 'Rainbow' flags could indicate that travellers have invaded the site.

I certainly hope that this is not the case as one of the advantages of living in a built up area like Kingston is that you do not get too much of this sort of problem as there is nowhere for them to go.

The only two incidents that I can remember in recent years were at the petrol station site on Portsmouth Road and the Rising Sun pub on Villiers Avenue. Neither were particularly pleasant for the neighbours but were quite short-lived.

There was another case of a building being occupied by some weirdo peace protestors in the town centre, and this one lasted a bit longer.

I hope we are not in for trouble at Ravens Ait.

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ravensislander says...
12:55am Tue 10 Mar 09

The challenges when facing this generation of life is that there are so many pathways crossing and many if not most are completely influenced by the straight exchange of cash. The island has been abandoned and could cost the council thousands of pounds to keep safe empty. Or be cared for by a local group who will keep, clean, and treat it with care. A good portion of all humanities concentration now needs to go on our close environments and our wider ecological environment, as our collective behavior is effecting the balance of simple, complex and fine tuned symbiotic ecological systems. Searching for better coherence with the natural environment in daily life withinl London. We need places to meet each other and discuss grass roots level action which needs to be made so that our culture can evolve to undo the damage. We need more than a couple of hours to understand how we can help it, we need proactive incubation time. And we're saving the council money, not trashing the place. Hopefully some negotiation will offer sense for everyone included.Back to the Planet.

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ravensislander says...
1:20am Tue 10 Mar 09

urgent action is needed on our environmental situation,this sat at Ravens island eco conference centre,there was a cinema night film about the deadline of 2050 for the extinction of most edible fish,by director phil stebbing, this and many other urgent issues are to be discussed and plans for solutions enacted,We are caretaking this space, we have in 2 short weeks been contacted by many groups working on many projects.The Ravens Island eco project is an urgent call for co-operation on solutions for the current crisis.More info on the web as it unfolds.One Love

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