Cock-a-doodle-don’t! Community rallies behind ‘Lady’ the rowdy rooster after council complains to his owner about noise

• Eliza Carthy received a noise complaint from Scarborough Borough Council
• Her rooster Lady is accused of crowing loudly and irritating upset neighbours
• Council is threatening to evict Lady and even slap Mrs Carthy with a fine
• Locals in Robin Hood’s Bay are now rallying behind Lady to ‘keep the cockerel’ 

Residents in a small fishing village in North Yorkshire have rallied to stop a noisy cockerel being evicted after his owner received a threatening letter from the council.

Lady, who was named so after being mistaken for a hen, is a loud rooster whose owner Eliza Carthy from Robin Hood’s Bay received a noise complaint on account of his crowing.

A letter sent to Mrs Carthy from Scarborough Borough Council seen by MailOnline threatens to investigate the complaint before taking action, including slapping her with an ‘unlimited fine’.

It warned: ‘If the complaint is found to be justified then I may have no alternative but to take more formal action by serving either a nuisance abatement notice (not complying could result in an unlimited fine or a Community Protection Notice’.

Frightened and upset by the notice, Mrs Carthy then posted a message on the Robin Hood’s Bay village Facebook group seeking help.

Lady, who was named so after being mistaken for a hen, is a loud rooster whose owner Eliza Carthy from Robin Hood’s Bay received a noise complaint on account of his crowing

A letter sent to Mrs Carthy from Scarborough Borough Council threatens to investigate the complaint before taking action, including slapping her with an ‘unlimited fine’

To her astonishment, hundreds of posts were made in support of Mrs Carthy, and a campaign has now been launched to ‘keep the cockerel’.

Mrs Carthy believes that even T-shirts with Lady’s face printed on the front are now being made by local residents angry with Scarborough Council.

Speaking to the BBC, she said: ‘When we first got the letter from the council, we were really quite scared and my mum got very, very upset.

‘It’s quite a threatening letter but what I did was I put a post out on the local Facebook, on the village Facebook group, just to say: ‘We’ve had this complaint, like I’ve said before, if anyone’s got any real problems, we really just, we don’t want to be bad neighbours, we just want to deal with it’.

‘And the response was quite something, I have to say.

‘We had about three to 400 posts to the original post, plus the campaign and the poster. I hear there’s T-shirts, there may be stickers.

‘As I say, we don’t want to be bad neighbours.

‘One of the great things about the post is that loads of people came up with ideas and somebody said if we locked him up at night and just let him out in the morning at a decent time, then that would reduce his crowing.

‘And it has, it seems to have worked. So we’re really happy about that.’

A spokesperson for Scarborough Borough Council said: ‘While we can’t discuss individual cases, we do have a statutory duty to investigate all noise complaints, regardless of the nature of the noise.’

Most local councils suggest at the first signs of an issue with cockerel noise, the cockerel owner and neighbours should have a friendly conversation – the owner may not know the cockerel is disturbing you.

If you feel unable to approach your local cockerel owner directly, try writing a polite letter, but remember to keep a copy for your records.

Councils are required by law to investigate noise complaints, but they may ask you to keep a log of incidents before they decide whether it is a genuine statutory nuisance claim.

Some councils offer an online complaints form to make this process easier.

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