Bird scarers kept us awake most of night

Might a fox have been after lambs? Farmers are believed to have been causing a disturbance to residents

Last week numerous residents in the Peel Common and Bridgemary areas were kept awake on two consecutive nights.

The noises of intially a bird scarer going off every 40 minutes then combined to shooting sounds all through Thursday and Friday nights.

A large number of residents were exceptionally alarmed by this, and rang 101 for information on the whereabouts of the disturbing nusaince.

Reports of a farmer shooting on his own land had been reported to Hampshire police.

However, there was no advance notice of any kind of a cull in any part of our neighbourhood.

The advice was to call the out-of-hours environmental health officer on 0800 374485.

This would allow the officer to source the noises in real time.

On social media, the disturbance was eventually triangulated to a two mile radius of people being kept up all night.

Pets and children had become very distressed by the noise.

Local people mentioned it over the next few days – they were, naturally trying to fact find exactly what had occurred.

It is believed that one farmer may have accidentally left bird scarers on all night twice.

The law states that these bird scarers must not be activated before 6am, or after darkness falls.

Environmental health inspectiors are investigating the incidents.

However, they can’t stop a farmer shooting animals on their own land.

Farmers have a code of conduct to follow regarding the distance noise travels. This should not exceed 200 metres from their farms.

This is something that they really need to stick to.

Farmers need to make a living and residents need a good night’s sleep, and to me that is the bottom line for the issue – it is about finding a middle ground between the two.

Peel House nursing home is literally less than a few meters from the main source of the noise disturbance.

Gosport Borough Council is to update its out-of-hours emergency answer machine message to include the out-of-hours environment health telephone number – which is 0800 374485.

At the moment, it only has information for Kier services.

Let’s all work towards a safer community.