Southern Cement were good for a while with very few complaints, and in the last two unloading they’ve created a racket.  And they were less than a week apart.

Apparently they’ve been chided for their use of contract labour which changes operators regularly.  Looks like they’ve chosen badly this time.  If the operator could speak English at all this time.  They don’t tend to be local, these casually employed operators.

BBC Look East were publicising a public meeting about the Southern Cement noise in Ipswich today.  There is as far as we know no such meeting.

There is a meeting of Babergh district council which is discussing the noise.  Email me if you need any further information.

One thing that is commonly said to the council about the port noise is that the cement hoover has sound proof casing.  Can you see it?  Me neither.

Now, I’m not saying they weren’t doing anything, but if they only talked to the residents – like just about any similar company does – then they would be able to show us what they are doing.  Instead they are leaving themselves to the mercy of telescopic lenses.

Isn’t it funny how the cement ship’s in the day after the public meeting?  I wonder if there was a deliberate delay?

We will be talking about this to the Maidenhall Residents’ Association at the Bowls Pavilion in Halifax Road at 7pm tonight.  (If you are not from Maidenhall then please remember that this will not be solely about the noise).

I know it’s becoming old news for the regular readers, but the public meeting is coming up.  We’ve been saying that the council don’t listen to us, well they are now.  If you don’t turn up they’ll say that you’re not interested.

It’s rumoured that the BBC may have more listeners than this blog has readers, so I’m going to be on Radio Suffolk tomorrow at 6.50 AM to drum up more support.

Details again:

Date: Tuesday 6 October

Time: 6.00pm – 8.00pm

Venue: IP-City Centre, Bath Street (near Wherstead Road)

A lot of Tories were canvassing on Wherstead Road and Bostock Road yesterday and got most of the expected concerns, port and traffic noise and the buses – together with a new concern of parking.

You know how serious this port noise is getting when one of the people you talk to is in the process of moving only because of the noise.

This is why you need to be at the public meeting on Tuesday 6pm at the IP-City Centre.

However the strength of the feeling on port noise.

We have some self print leaflets to publicise the meeting on the Port Noise at the IP Centre on Tuesday.  Pleas email me if you want a copy on noise@bridgeward.org.uk

Just a quick reminder that there is a public meeting on the port noise:

Date: Tuesday 6 October

Time: 6.00pm – 8.00pm

Venue: IP-City Centre, Bath Street (near Wherstead Road)

Sadly cement importers to think that pollution is a positive way of engaging the community, but marine pollution has been  dealt with in another part of Suffolk, with oil tankers to be banned from oil transfers.  There’s three lessons to be learnt from this:

• A hard working and sympathetic local MP like John Gummer can get results
• The Transport ministry team, of which Chris Mole is a part, can stop shipping pollution – perhaps Chris Mole should remember this in his part time job as MP for Ipswich
• Regulatory agencies only have two modes – allow and ban.  There are far, far worse things for unpopular companies than getting a voluntary arrangement with residents.

Until now I have never properly understood what they mean by the term “groundswell”, but this is what is happening with the port noise.  I’ve spoken to politicians of all sides and they are shocked at the anger that this issue is raising.  Relying on lawyers to terrify Ipswich council will not help with that anger, and that anger is rising.

The only thing that will cut down the anger is engaging with the community.  The longer Southern Cement thumb their nose at their neighbours the harder the council will find it to help them.

I was rather angry at the environment portfolio holder Louise Gooch’s comments that the Noise Action Group wanted to shut down Southern Cement.  We’ve always been quite clear that this is not what we wanted. I emailed her to let her know that I was angry.

And a miracle occurred.

A politician changed their mind.  The presentation put on by the Noise Action Group convinced her that we wanted to be good neighbours (a phrase we keep on using).  It does seem that the councillors really, really resent Southern Cement for putting them in the position that they are in.

Other news, the Evening Star have put out a piece on the internet about the Council executive meeting, here.