Cattle market wins noise appeal

15 May 2008 07:12pm

A historic livestock market has won its appeal against a council notice which said it was too noisy.

During a tense two-day hearing, directors of the Darlington Farmers Auction Market Ltd (DfAM) said their business would be "strangled" if a noise abatement notice issued by Darlington Borough Council was upheld.

The notice, issued in January under the Environmental Health Protection Act 1990, said the market must cease the delivery and collection of animals between 9pm and 7am at its Clifton Road site.

The council said noise from the site constituted a "statutory nuisance", arising from running tractor engines, banging noises as the animals left the trailer, the banging of gates and noise from market staff and farmers.

But magistrates quashed the notice and said a "more thorough" investigation was needed for the council to impose restrictions.

Edward Whelan, the environmental health officer who issued the notice, told Darlington Magistrates' Court that he had visited the site once at 4.30am on a market morning, when animals were being delivered, and said his decision was "one of the easiest ones I've called".

But Colin Beadle, chairman of the bench, said: "We feel that a more thorough investigation was required before Mr Whelan could be sufficiently satisfied that there was a statutory nuisance."

He referred to the guidelines for noise nuisance published on the council's own website, which state that three visits would be made by officers before an abatement order was issued.

The court heard that there are about 200 shareholders in the market, most of whom are farmers or descendants of farmers. It has been based at its current site since 1878.

The delivery of animals begins at around 6.30am on Mondays for a store market, when animals are sold to farms for breeding or fattening, and at around 4.10am on Thursdays for the prime stock market. Market directors said they could not delay the delivery of animals on Thursdays because the cattle would not reach the abattoirs in time for slaughter on the same day.

© The Press Association