I am now chair of the village council. Henry asked me to put my name forward.

There is a concrete works in the Old Station Yard site. The yard is in a cutting which had led straight into a short tunnel, now bricked up. (The last train left the station in 1964).

This company designs buildings made from large concrete modules in different styles and finishes.

The company got permission to build a “portal frame industrial unit” to replace an old Nissen shed. It looked a simple upgrade.  The council had not realised how big it was.

When the construction started, you could see right away it was going to project well above the rim of the cutting – which it never did before.

One of the householders said: “Once we had a view across to meadows and trees. Now we look out on a factory.”

An even bigger problem is the noise. The site is busier than before.

There are mobile cranes with reversing alarms. There is a unit, called the “hopper” or “batching plant”, which crushes and mixes stone and other ingredients, making an intermittent noise like a big hammer drill. Trucks arrive and depart, carrying away finished blocks. 

Rick and Loretta’s home is right on the edge of the site. From the end of their garden you can look down into the works. She is a theatrical dance artist.  He is a musician and composer and has built a small sound studio in their garden. Together they run workshops for young people all over the world and organise performances for which he often composes the music.

They are tormented by the noise from the site.  They say they cannot work at home any more, even with titanium ear plugs. Rick says he is hearing phantom sounds at night when the site is closed.

Heather Atterbury is championing the couple. She has arranged a series of meetings with the officers from the environmental health department.

If we had opposed the development in the first place, they might not have had this disturbance in their lives.

But the firm employs 35 people, many from the village.

Tomorrow we are going to China.