Scaffolders' dismay at disturbing couple

Wayne Barrellie and Matt Paulin had been trying to find a suitable site to store scaffold planks and tubes when a 50 square feet enclosed yard became available on the Beeching Road industrial estate, where it backs onto Windsor Road.

With one year's temporary planning permission granted for their use of the yard, Wayne and Matt moved in some three or four months ago, constructing racks for their materials and clearing space for their lorry and van.

But the development caused consternation for neighbours Graeme and Lisa Harding, who last week told the Observer how noise and alleged use of the yard outside permitted hours had wrecked their plans to have their new baby born at home.

Wayne said: "Matt and I are both family men ourselves, and there was no way we would have wanted to cause problems for the Hardings, who I have to say we have never actually met.

"We've been trading as Boss since August and we're keen to get our business properly established, supplying and erecting scaffolding wherever clients want us to.

"We serve a large area in and beyond Bexhill and we're usually only here at the beginning and end of the day, as we clearly don't want to be hanging around our base when hopefully there's work to be done."

Matt added: "Beeching Road has been an industrial estate for many years and our sort of business is what you might expect to be located here. Yes, it can be noisy when we're loading and unloading, but there are other nearby sites that are far noisier and for longer.

"We always try to think of others and, if we can, get loaded late afternoon ready for the next day so that we're not disturbing people first thing."

The temporary planning permission allows for use of the site between 7am and 6pm Mondays to Fridays, 7am to 1pm on Saturdays and not at all on Sundays or Bank Holidays.

Wayne said: "I admit we may have slightly overstepped that a couple of times early on while we were getting set up, but otherwise we've stuck rigidly to the terms Rother District Council has set."

The business partners said a spiked security fence around the site, which Mr and Mrs Harding had complained was not the two-metre high chainlink fence originally specified for its northern and southern boundaries, was already in place when they rented the yard.

Councillors are due to consider the situation and whether any enforcement action is necessary following a deadline for comments from interested parties last Friday.

At the time of going to press, the Hardings were still awaiting the birth of their baby.