Published Date: 01 September 2004
POLICE have confirmed that more than 500 party-goers descended on Mansfield's notorious trouble hotspot The Desert on Saturday for an all-night rave which could be heard for miles.
It is thought the party was organised over the internet, meaning rave fans from across the country converged on the site for the illegal Bank Holiday music bonanza.
Revellers were camped out in converted buses, live-in vans and cars when officers moved in to break up the party on Sunday morning - issuing hardline dispersal orders to clear the trouble-hit site between Clipstone and Rainworth.
It is understood phone lines were jammed on Saturday night by angry residents across the area, who demanded action to stop the noise which went on throughout the night.
Holidaymakers at Center Parcs, many with young children, were also hit by the noise and joined the late-night protests at the rave music.
One Edwinstowe householder told Chad this week: "It was a constant noise all Saturday night and no-one in my house slept at all.
"All you could hear was the same sound: bump, bump, bump until the next morning. It is an environmental issue and people just don't want that level of noise.
"If they were having a concert finishing at midnight, that is not a problem, but to go on like that is a massive nuisance and should be stopped."
Yesterday Insp John Haskew admitted that police had responded to the numerous calls from fed-up residents and went to The Desert on Sunday morning with Newark and Sherwood District Council environmental health officers to issue notices ordering the revellers to leave the scene.
"The issuing of these notices was filmed from above by a police helicopter," he told Chad. "As a result of the notices and positive police action the people left the site without any further problems."
He said when officers arrived at the site, there were around 160 vehicles, but no arrests were made and by Bank Holiday Monday only two broken-down vans were still at the scene.
you'd get fucking allsorts there and it'd be absolutely rammed with "aff it" punters tripping over people... great times... and some fucking great tunes played as I recall... 
