Residents don’t love church neighbour

Mar 31 2008 by Brian Daniel, The Journal

A CHURCH in Northumberland is facing a revolt by neighbours who say it is too noisy.

St James’s United Reformed Church Centre at Pottergate in Alnwick is seeking permission to hold plays, films, indoor sporting events, live and recorded music, and dance on site.

If approved, activities at the church would be permitted from 9am to 10.30pm each day except Sunday, when the cut-off point would be 10pm.

But eight neighbours have submitted objections to licensing authority Alnwick District Council amid fears that they will be subjected to round-the-clock noise.

They are also annoyed that they were not consulted over the application in advance.

The authority’s licensing sub-committee will make a decision at a hearing tomorrow.

But the church minister says the application gives the impression the plan is much more frightening than it is.

Retired Kathleen Edmondson, 71, of Pottergate, is one of the objectors who will attend the council meeting.

She says has already had to put up with noise while the building is redeveloped and the former church hall next door is converted to affordable homes.

Mrs Edmondson says she has been unable to sit outside because of noise from building work and is unimpressed by the prospect of more from music.

She said: “They are having music on from 9am, some of it is going to be late. It is not so much me – I am opposite the church – but the people next door.

“In the summertime they like to sit in their garden, they are going to have music, music all the time. It is going to be terrible.

“I think they should have consulted us a bit more. This used to be a lovely quiet place; it has changed. It is OK having a dance now and again, but not music from early in the morning.”

The church says the application has been submitted because of the redevelopment of its building, which obliges it to seek to renew its licence under new legislation.

It says there are no plans to change the activities happening at the church, but it must list all the things it could be used for and every hour in which these might happen. Not all the activities applied for would take place, the church says. Minister the Rev Joan Grindrod-Helmn said: “We hope that the folk who object will understand that some of this is a process that we have to go through because of having a new building and new legislation, but we really do not anticipate doing much different at all to what we have had previously.

“The way the licensing laws are at the moment, to have any sort of either live or recorded music it is the same application for a pub, for Wembley Stadium, for a church, for anything. The way the application is written makes it look much more frightening than it is. We have a great deal of sympathy with the people who live around us and we will do everything in our power to try and keep to very reasonable levels of noise at any time.”

The council’s environmental health department originally objected to the application, but withdrew its concerns after agreeing on conditions with the church.