|
|
|
Residents losing sleep over late night deliveries
Marc Mullen
BLEARY-EYED West Hampstead residents are blaming early morning deliveries to Sainsbury's for ruining their sleep.
In October a sign banning loading between 7pm and 7am has disappeared from West End Lane where it meets Kilburn High Road, behind Sainsbury's.
And since then residents have been woken by lorries delivering to the store in the early hours of the morning.
They now want Camden Council to bring back the ban so they can get a peaceful night's sleep.
Michael Bourke, 35, lives opposite the loading bay. He said: "I've been frustrated trying to get an answer from Camden Council as to why the sign suddenly disappeared.
"I'm not looking for trouble but these deliveries are really disrupting our sleeping patterns. Sainsbury's is now saying it's a loading bay and they have a legal right to use it at any time.
"I fully respect that Sainsbury's provides a service to the whole community, but I just want a bit of fair play. I don't think they are playing fair and are disrupting resident's lives at the moment."
Residents are signing a petition to send to the store and Camden Council demanding a stop to deliveries through the night.
And Camden Council environment officers have been monitoring whether noise levels in Mr Bourke's home caused by the deliveries breach statutory levels.
A council spokeswoman said: "We are investigating complaints of noise nuisance caused by late night and early morning deliveries to Sainsbury's in Kilburn.
"We have carried out several early morning visits and are now assessing the evidence.
"If we find that the noise is causing a statutory nuisance, we will serve a noise abatement notice."
This month Kilburn councillor James King took up the cause. In a letter to Sainsbury's he wrote: "You have been made aware of residents' concerns and the issue has been raised by Camden Council's environmental health team, but there has been no willingness to discuss alternative delivery options. I would urge you to reconsider this stance."
Kilburn store manager Richard Alexander said: "We have been trading here since 1971 and serve over 50,000 local people each week.
"We take residents' complaints very seriously and we are currently looking at how we can minimise noise and disruption to them.
"We have been working with the council's environmental health team to reach a positive outcome and we have scheduled a follow up meeting in the near future."
Meanwhile managers of Sainsbury's at the O2 Centre on Finchley Road have agreed to begin daily patrols of a two-mile radius around the store to collect abandoned trolleys.
Virginia Berridge from West Hampstead group What said: "This was first raised with Camden Council in January. It is good that new legislation has enabled them to take action over this problem on private land. I look forward to see how it is implemented."
marc.mullen@hamhigh.co.uk
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| WEST HAMPSTEAD NEWS |
Use the links at the bottom of the story to have your say, send the story to a friend, or send a story in to the Ham&High newsroom
|
|
|
|
|
|