Investigation underway after residents raise concerns about noise at Newtownabbey factory

The complaints have been made to the council after the engineering and manufacturing facility on the Doagh Road installed new extraction fans last year.

A spokesperson for the local authority said: “The council’s Environmental Health Section has received five reported noise complaints relating to the CDE plant in Monkstown.

"The council is currently investigating the matter, working closely with CDE and residents to address concerns raised. Unfortunately. we are unable to make any further comment at this time.

“Under the Clean Neighbourhood and Environment Act (Northern Ireland) 2011, the council is duty bound to investigate a statutory nuisance.

"For a nuisance to be considered a statutory nuisance it must be regarded as interference that ordinary people would consider unreasonable with the personal comfort or enjoyment or amenity of neighbours or the community. The Act includes provisions for implementing abatement measures.”

The Newtownabbey Times was contacted by a resident from the Monkstown area in relation to the issue. The man, who wished to remain anonymous, claimed: “We’ve been hearing this noise from the CDE factory since around September/October of last year. We live around half a mile from CDE and the droning can be heard throughout the day and night. Once you hear it, you can’t ignore it.

"We moved into the area during the pandemic and this is our ‘forever’ home, but we wouldn’t have moved here if we’d known this noise would be coming from the factory.

“When I’m home from work, I can hear the noise even over the sound of the television. We shouldn’t have to put up with this in our own home. It is very frustrating.”

The Cookstown-headquartered supplier of equipment for the global mining and quarry industries, has stated that work is underway to rectify any noise issues at the Newtownabbey plant.

In a statement in response to a query from this newspaper, a spokesperson for the company said: “CDE installed a new weld extraction system in 2022 in response to new health and safety legislation, and in line with the company’s primary aim of prioritising the safety and wellbeing of its employees.

"Following a noise complaint by a local resident, CDE has been working closely with the council and has engaged with noise consultants to determine the source of the noise that the resident identified. Testing by noise consultants determined that this equipment was producing tonal frequencies and that these were low and within permissible limits.

"That being said, CDE values the communities in which it operates, and therefore has worked diligently on a solution that removes these tonal frequencies from the equipment in question, without comprising the health and safety of the employees using the equipment.

"CDE has invested heavily in this process, often shutting down production for testing. The council is aware of CDE’s timeline of installation of this solution in October.”