Updated: COUNCIL bosses have won another victory in a lengthy legal battle against noisy motor events at an airfield near York.

City of York Council has fought for years in several courts to put the brakes on the events at Elvington Airfield, following protests from local residents.

Now Elvington Events Ltd and airfield owner Elvington Park Ltd have failed in a bid to overturn two noise abatement notices issued by the authority.

The companies had challenged a York Crown Court decision which confirmed the validity of notices issued in October 2009.

Lawyers claimed they were too unclear to be legally enforceable, were defective in referring “only in general terms” to excessive noise emissions and in failing to specify what the council was complaining about. They said they were also not specific about what the companies should do to curtail the noise nuisance “short of closing down the enterprise.”

But Judge Langan – sitting at the High Court in Leeds – rejected the companies’ case, concluding that “the objection to the notice is not well-founded.” Elvington Parish chairman Ian Bailey said he hoped the judgement would finally bring the matter to a close, and called for the council and company to sit down and reach an agreement on what activities were acceptable. He said the protracted legal action was expensive not just financially for the council but also in terms of officers’ time.

He said events were now much better controlled and did not cause a nuisance in the village, but they did still affect people living along the periphery of the airfield.

Mike Southcombe, the council’s Environmental Protection manager, said the authority welcomed the High Court’s dismissal of the appeals.

He said the authority had received hundreds of noise complaints from local residents about motorsports and related activities at the Elvington Airfield since the owners bought the site in 2000.

“We will continue to respond to noise complaints from local residents and monitor noise levels at events held at the airfield.

“If sufficient evidence of a breach of the noise abatement notices are obtained the council could prosecute, with fines up to £20,000.”