Noise Complaints May Shut Down Cricket Club

by jordan | February 17, 2008 at 06:55 pm | 655 views | 2 comments

The club has been there for over 130 years... perhaps the complaining homeowners should have looked around to see if they were buying a house that was, well, next to a cricket club.

Cricketers in the picturesque Buckinghamshire village of The Lee say the future of their 133-year-old club is now in the balance following the ruling by their district council.

Officers spent 18 months of meetings and appeals investigating complaints from neighbours of The Lee Cricket Club – and have finally decided the nets cause an unreasonable "intensification" of the usual sound of bat hitting ball.

Guy Morgan, whose 14-year-old son Alex is a member of the club, said: "A cricket club without nets is absurd.

"We hear so much about kids spending their lives indoors on computers and not getting out.

"Cricket does everything we say kids don't get: discipline, fresh air and exercise in a safe environment."

The ban was sparked by the complaints of 59-year-old Philip Moody, a retired company director whose sun lounge backs on to the club.

Try as I might, I just can't identify with the homeowners on this one: the environment of the properties they bought would appear to be self-evident. Cricket bats make noise. They just do.

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cynthia yoo

at 19:19 on February 17th, 2008

good stuff:

jordan, I like this story. It's good stuff. this reminds me of that classic first year torts case on nuisance...why that case is well-known is because of Lord Denning's dissent:

"In summertime village cricket is the delight of everyone. Nearly every
village has its own cricket field where the young men play and the old
men watch. In the village of Lintz in County Durham they have their own
ground, where they have played these last 70 years. They tend it well.
The wicket area is well rolled and mown. The outfield is kept short. It
has a good club house for the players and seats for the onlookers. The
village team play there on Saturdays and Sundays. They belong to a
league, competing with the neighbouring villages. On other evenings
after work they practise while the light lasts. Yet now after these 70
years a judge of the High Court has ordered that they must not play
there any more. He has issued an injunction to stop them. He has done
it at the instance of a newcomer who is no lover of cricket. This
newcomer has built, or has had built for him, a house on the edge of
the cricket ground which four years ago was a field where cattle
grazed. The animals did not mind the cricket. But now this adjoining
field has been turned into a housing estate. The newcomer bought one of
the houses on the edge of the cricket ground. No doubt the open space
was a selling point. Now he complains that when a batsman hits a six
the ball has been known to land in his garden or on or near his house.
His wife has got so upset about it that they always go out at
week-ends. They do not go into the garden when cricket is being played.
They say that this is intolerable. So they asked the judge to stop the
cricket being played. And the judge, much against his will, has felt
that he must order the cricket to be stopped: with the consequence, I
suppose, that the Lintz Cricket Club will disappear. The cricket ground
will be turned to some other use. I expect for more houses or a
factory. The young men will turn to other things instead of cricket.
The whole village will be much the poorer. And all this because of a
newcomer who has just bought a house there next to the cricket ground.[4]"

LeithFAB

at 20:43 on February 17th, 2008

For people to complain about the noise of leather upon willow is bizarre - it is one of the classic sounds of summer. You either like cricket or you don't, but to take particular exception to the sounds of cricket when you have chosen to live next to a 133 year old club is unreasonable beyond belief!

PHOTO: A midweek freindly at Leith Links in Edinburgh - some Leith CC players make a point to the officials.
LeithFAB has contributed a photo to this story.