Residents close to the M-Sport facility in Dovenby are being consulted over noise levels from the track.

In the latest round of consultation regarding a Noise Management Plan, which was a condition of its new evaluation centre getting planning permission, letters from Allerdale council have gone out to people living in surrounding areas including Dovenby, Tallentire, Bridekirk, Papcastle, Brigham, Great and Little Broughton and Dearham.

People can listen to sound recordings of noise from the track by accessing the portal at planning.allerdale.gov.uk/portal/servlets/ApplicationSearchServlet and quoting the reference number ADD/2020/0001.

Locals have until next Friday to make comments.

Allerdale’s planning department explained that following physical testing since the completion of the track, the current submission seeks the council’s approval of further details such as location and number of monitors relating to how the noise will be measured and monitored at the trackside, and then the reduction figure that will be applied to the track noise within the monitoring software to determine what the resulting noise levels will be within the community, to ensure compliance with the set limits.

So far there have been 30 objections from neighbours (several citing insufficient testing), two letters of support and one that neither supports nor objects to the application. Papcastle Parish Council says it has no objections.

Dovenby resident Michael Fossey, who has campaigned against the track throughout the process, said villagers were not happy after listening to the sound recordings and the feeling among residents is that testing has not been done properly.

He said: “One of the things that is very worrying is they are contending that they can subtract the background noise from actual noise and that is the figure.”

Mr Fossey also said recordings are done ‘free field’ but if you are in front of a building it will increase the volume substantially and can double the noise by three decibels. He said: “I would have liked them to do the testing closer to buildings rather than free field.”

Northern Development, which is building the testing facility for M-Sport, declined to comment for themselves or for M-Sport.