WE SHALL NOT BE MOOVED
Legal battle to save ‘noisy’ farm
A SANCTUARY which is home to epileptic pigs, three-legged cats and blind dogs is facing closure over complaints it is too noisy.
Boss Amey James, 36, fears the 450 animals, including emus, cows, dogs, ducks, chickens and 120 discarded cockerels, will have to be put down.
Her Happy Pants
Ranch has received a noise abatement order after complaints to police and the council. So Ms James faces prosecution if there are more moans about the volume of her menagerie.
She has also been told failure to get proper planning permission means the entire site must go.
Ms James, who quit her graphic design job in London to set up Happy Pants at Bobbing, Kent, is legally challenging the local council’s decision.
A petition supporting Happy Pants, which became a registered charity three years ago, has 3,000 signatures
She said: “We’ve no idea what we will do if we lose the appeal. The worst outcome is the charity goes under and the animals will be put to sleep, which is the decision the council is trying to force.
“But that will be over my dead body.
So I’m taking them to court over it.” Ms James said she measured the sound from her sanctuary at the bottom of the drive at 30 decibels. A standard vacuum cleaner makes between 65 and 90 decibels.
She added: “The neighbours are even further away than that.”
But, she said, the council told her officials do not carry out decibel readings but simply measure using their ears.
“That just seems absurd,” she went on. “If it goes to court, they will have to get readings.”
Ms James fears some locals are trying to force her out as there has been damage to her property and other incidents.
She said she has taken steps to lower the volume since last summer’s noise order. “We moved the animals and started sound-proofing the generator,” she added. “Everything we have done is satisfactory apart from the cockerels and geese. If you can’t keep cockerels on a 20-acre plot of land, where can you keep them?”
A Swale council spokesman said the development went against the local plan and national planning policy.
He added: “Alongside the planning application, we’ve issued two noise abatement notices, one for generator noise which has been resolved, and one for animal noise which is ongoing.”