A KNUTSFORD family has told how they had to re-mortgage their home to pay legal costs fighting a noise nuisance that Cheshire East failed to deal with for a decade.

David Wright, his wife and two young children, have now moved out of their home in Bexton Lane saying their lives have been hell for the past 10 years.

Last month the Local Government Ombudsman upheld their complaint against Cheshire East Council and awarded them £450 ‘in recognition of the injustice you experienced throughout this matter’.

The complaints related to noise coming from a neighbouring wedding venue.

The ombudsman found the council had failed to object to temporary events notices at the venue; failed to communicate with the family properly; failed to issue a valid noise abatement notice; failed to make representations to a review committee; and failed to consider evidence.

The findings only referred to a complaint dating between March 2019 and October last year as the ombudsman can only investigate the previous 12 months. The ombudsman said a colleague exercised discretion to investigate from March 2019 rather than October 2019.

Mr Wright told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “I’ve been really frustrated by the really appalling service from the council, not just for one year but stretching back 10 or 11 years.”

“We have now moved because, after 11 years of problems with the wedding venue next door, after it had all supposedly been sorted out, we just had no inclination to stay there any more, even though it is our family home.”

The Wrights’ former home in Bexton Lane shares a party wall with the wedding venue, Larkspur Lodge, formerly known as the Leicester Warren Hall. It changed ownership in 2018.

When they bought the house in 2006 they said there were no problems at all.

The masonic hall, as it was then, was only used for Freemasons’ meetings but it began to be used for weddings and parties three years later under the name Leicester Warren Hall.

Mr Wright said: “My daughter, who is nine now, was never able to use her bedroom because of the noise.”

He said the council has shown ‘total incompetence’ in dealing with numerous complaints about the noise over the years.

“At one stage they sent out an abatement notice, finally we actually thought they were doing something,” said Mr Wright.

“They sent out an abatement notice to stop the noise next door however, because the name on it was wrong, it null and voided the abatement notice and the council just failed to do anything after that.

“Prior to that, we spent years trying to get the council to do stuff through our solicitor and through our acoustic experts who wrote to them many times saying engage with us, and they wouldn’t.”

“We first complained to Cheshire East in February 2010 and, of course, if the ombudsman could have gone back to then he would have wiped the floor with them because they’re just useless.”

He added: “We’ve relocated now, we’ve totally changed our lives and that’s prompted it - the absolute stress and hell we had there.”

In the apology letter sent to the family, the council’s head of regulatory services, Tracey Bettaney, said: “Further to the ombudsman’s decision regarding your complaint about how the council investigated the issues of noise from Larkspur Lodge, I would like to express our sincere apologies for the way in which your complaint was investigated by the council, including the failure to issue a valid noise abatement notice to address the noise source.”

The LDRS asked the council if it had any further comment to make as Mr Wright said it failed to deal with numerous noise complaints he made between 2010 and 2019, which the ombudsman was unable to investigate because of the time factor.

A Cheshire East Council spokesperson said: “We accept the findings of the ombudsman and have apologised to the complainants.”