Rufford Street is unusual for a densely populated residential area in that it has its own ReadyMix Concrete plant at No 1 Rufford Street (see satellite photo – when you click to get rid of the speech bubble, the concrete plant is visible as the long north-south feature in the top-middle sandwiched between the railways and the street)

Every morning from about 0700 many lorry loads of aggregate (gravel, sand etc) are delivered. The large lorries that deliver arrive at some speed on Randell’s Road and back up to and tip their loads into large steel  hoppers.  The noise when 30 tonnes of gravel hits a steel tank has to be heard to be beleived.  It often wakes me up.  I have a long running complaint in train with the Council noise officers and so do some of my neighbours.  I knew the plant was here when i bought my house but their incredibly noisy early morning deliveries are unreasonable and coudl be moved to a later time.  The plant is also very dusty.

The plant has been there since the 1960s when the area was in severe decline and industry was leaving central London.  Originally the Council refused permission for the plant due to noise and the fact that it was a residential area, but ReadyMix won on appeal. 

Despite much talk on their website being a good neighbour CEMEX have been a very bad neighbour here refusing to do anything about this issue or engage in worthwhile dialogue

I shall use this blog to keep track of my complaint with the council and my correspondence with CEMEX the Mexico-based multi-national who now own the plant.

UPDATE

I have written  to the President of CEMEX UK Operations Ignatio Ortiz.  Will post his reply

Download blog_version_cemex_ignacio_ortiz.doc

i also attach the original press cut from the planning decision for this plant in 1961 (warning 600k)

Download rufford_st_concrete_plant.pdf

UPDATE 6 JULY

Cemex got back to me yesterday after i emailed the letter above to the office of the Sustainability Director, David Evans. His colleague Joanne Wilson is looking into it.  I found it very hard to find a way to contact anyone at CEMEX directly.  Their website does not display any details about who is respsonsible for UK operations.  I only found out the email of the PA to David Evans because it was left in a pdf file of a community newsletter.

UPDATE ROUNDUP 3 August

There area  number of updates elsewhere brought together below

The response from CEMEX to my letter to Snr Ortiz is here

The observation of a possible new pattern of activity – not starting tipping until 0800 -is here

The most recent promise from CEMEX and a representative clip of a tipping incident on Saturday morning is here

To access all the videos i have made (of varying degress of quality – i am no Steven Spielberg) that get across the severity and nature of the noise pollution go here (to Youtube where they will run in your browser quite happily if you have broadband)