Residents of Chapel-en-le-Frith, a town in the Peak District, have won a High Court appeal over a skate park they said is causing a nuisance.
The skate park and multi-use games area is located in Chapel-en-le-Frith Memorial Park, which is the responsibility of the local parish council.
Residents said the sound of ball strikes, kicks and bounces, skateboards on metal ramps, along with shouts and loud music amount to a statutory nuisance.
However, a district judge dismissed their application for a noise abatement order, ruling there is a distinction between noise generated by the intended use of the skate park and anti-social use.
He also found the residents had been rendered “hypersensitive” by anti-social sounds, making them more adversely affected by noise arising from the park’s intended use.
Residents appealed to the High Court, claiming the district judge’s findings were based on a misunderstanding of the law.
In a ruling handed down yesterday, Mr Justice Turner, who heard the case at Liverpool civil and family court, backed the residents.
He ruled that the district judge was wrong to distinguish between noise generated by the intended use of the park and noise emanating from anti-social behaviour associated with it.
“Since it was impermissible to distinguish between intended and anti-social noise, it was also impermissible to treat anti-social noise, in part, as a cause of hypersensitivity,” he ruled.
He said the district judge should have considered whether all the noise generated by the park was “injurious to health”.
The judge said he would consider what should now be done after hearing submissions from the parties.
Dr Merren Jones, Dr Stephen Covey-Crump David Howe v Chapel-en-le-Frith Parish Council
QBD (Mr Justice Turner) 25 July 2022
