Council spends £2,200 changing church bells after noise complaint from angry villager

A parish council in Devon has paid more than £2,000 to adjust the mechanism of its village church clock following a singular noise complaint.

The bells of St John the Baptist's Church, in Witheridge, had chimed throughout the day and night, every fifteen minutes, for around 150 years.

However, they stopped in January, after North East Devon Council served the parish council with a noise abatement order, following a complaint about the bells.

Villagers were outraged by the decision to silence them and a petition set up by residents to restore the nightly chime has garnered more than 350 signatures in two days.

David Gale, who started the petition, described the clock as "an integral part of village life".

"It's more than just a timekeeper," he said. "It's an audible symbol of our shared heritage and community spirit."

Witheridge Parish Council has paid more than £2,000 to install a night silencer, to stop the bells from ringing between 11pm and 7am.

The silencer was fitted on Friday 15 March. It means the bells chime only between 7am and 11pm.

North East Devon Council said officers from the Environmental Protection Team assessed the noise level from the clock bells before serving a noise abatement notice.

The officers determined the noise was loud enough to be a "Statutory Nuisance under Section 79(g) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990," a council spokesperson said.

"They considered the loudness, the frequency and duration of the noise. It was considered that the chime every 15 minutes was likely to wake or disturb the sleep of the complainant and other residents nearby."

They added: “The council has been contacted by other residents expressing disappointment at the silencing of the clock bells.

"However, most of these were not in close proximity to the bells and unlikely to be significantly impacted by the noise."