Petition from residents kept awake at night

RESIDENTS claim they are being kept awake by the constant drone of hi-tech machinery installed inside a paper factory.

Homeowners say they have had sleepless nights over the last month and are blaming machinery at the Charles Turner plant in Belmont.

People living up to a mile away claim the machinery is emitting high decibels through the night.

Hugh Everard, of Dewhurst Clough Road, Egerton, has noise monitoring equipment in his bedroom to keep track of the problem.

The 59-year-old said: "The noise tends to start at around midnight and goes on until 7am. It's a constant, annoying drone and it's unbelievably loud."

A spokesman at the Charles Turner plant has denied that any new machinery has been acquired over the last two years, and insisted that noise levels are reasonable.

A petition of 12 names has now been sent to Bolton Council.

As the factory straddles the council border between Bolton and Blackburn, the petition was later referred to Blackburn. It was felt the noise was coming from the Blackburn side of Belmont Road.

Council officials in Blackburn, however, decided that, although the factory was on their patch, the petition must be dealt with by Bolton Town Hall as all the names on the petition were Egerton residents living on the Bolton side of the border.

Mr Everard said: "If you are considering moving into the Belmont or Egerton areas, I suggest you delay your move, otherwise you may have trouble sleeping."

A spokesman for Charles Turner said: "We take regular noise surveys and have not found a problem."

"I'm sure there would have been a lot more complaints if people actually knew who to complain to.