Parish Council Should Listen To Reason And Turn Bells Down Or Off During Night

Mid Beds District Council are asking Cranfield Parish Council to turn down or turn off newly re-installed church bells which chime every quarter of an hour throughout the quiet evenings and early mornings.

All councils are obliged to investigate noise complaints under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and to protect individuals by taking action if evidence constitutes a noise nuisance.

Mid Beds do not want to silence the bells completely but think everyone deserves a decent night’s sleep. Some residents have compared the noise to sleep deprivation and Mid Beds has a duty to protect them by asking the church to turn the noise down or turn the chimes off during the night. They have refused to consider this and by not working with us we have been given no choice but to issue our abatement notice.

We do not see it as unreasonable to reduce this noise by switching the chimes of between midnight and the early morning or reducing the acoustic impact of the bells.

These bells are not where they were 300 years ago but were moved during their recent refurbishment. The large bells have been rehung right by a window, often left open, which faces Oaken Pin Close, where the complaints have come from, and could be acoustically treated to reduce the noise escaping.

Within weeks of them being switched back on we received complaints and monitored the noise levels, which reach over 50 decibels in a bedroom 140m. away at 2 o’clock in the early hours of the morning – double the noise what you’d expect in a normal bedroom at that time.

These chimes sound every quarter of an hour and often set off the neighbourhood dogs, who add to the noise.

We have been talking, or trying to talk, to the Church and the Parish Council but they have not been willing to work with us about tackling the noise. The works to solve the problem could cost £2,000, but the maximum fine for noise nuisance could be £20,000, so it seems reasonable for the Parish Council to compromise.

Four residents turned up at a Parish Council meeting and are quoted as saying, “the clock was causing them to sleep badly and some said they were suffering from sleep deprivation”.

Many other parishes turn their chimes off during the night.