Bridge Hotel owners Jeremy and Pat Furze want to be able to turn their live music gigs up to 11 – but not if it bothers the neighbours.
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Castlemaine’s Bridge Hotel is in line for state government funding to help minimise the noise impact on surrounding homes and businesses.
The Good Music Neighbours program grants up to $25,000 per venue in matched funding.
The Furze brothers took over the Bridge Hotel in October and have yet to have a noise complaint.
“We have been lucky in that our neighbours are pretty supportive and it hasn't been too much of a problem,” Jeremy said.
“But we're aware that people need peace and quiet. They need to be able to live their lives and we don’t want to cause an imposition on that.
“We also want to put on a variety of shows. If we’re putting on loud shows, we want the peace of mind that it’s not going to create headaches for neighours.”
Jeremy said small changes to the Bridge would help reduce any noise heard by neighbours.
“Things like double glazing in the windows, filling gaps in the building that will help plug sound. Some small changes can really reduce sound by a significant amount,” he said.
“But a lot of venues wouldn’t be able to do it without funding. This sort of stuff costs thousands of dollars and, from our experience, most venues don’t have a spare $10,000 to go and do those sort of renovations.”
Jeremy moved to Castlemaine three years ago before he and Pat took over the Bridge Hotel last October.
“I have always loved the Bridge. Even before I moved to Castlemaine, I had seen shows at the Bridge,” he said.
“We had to do a fair bit of work and wanted to put own flavour on how the business runs but it has been really rewarding.
“We rely on a community in something like this and we’re lucky to have a great community around us.”
Recently 22 venues across Victoria including The Bridge Hotel received acoustic assessment funding, an important first step in the process of managing and understanding a venue’s sound management and maintaining good relations within its community.
Since the program began, more than $500,000 has been invested in more than 50 Victorian venues.
Jeremy said the brothers had success with the program at their Clifton Hill Venue Some Velvet Morning.
“In the first round of grants last year we were able to do significant works that made massive difference to way operate business,” he said.
“We had neighbours complaining a lot. As a result of being able to build a sound wall, it cut our sound by 70 per cent and we haven’t had a complaint since then. It was a real success story.”
Applications can be made via the Creative Victoria Grants Portal until Thursday, April 26.
For more information log on to www.musicvictoria.com.au/gmn