A BID for deliveries to North Berwick’s Aldi store to begin at 5.30am instead of 7am has been opposed by the town’s community council after it heard how neighbouring residents were being woken up by the “extremely noisy” lorries.

At a meeting of the community council, members were made aware of the planning application from Aldi to change a condition of a previous application from last year, which allowed the store on Dunbar Road to open one hour later on Sundays.

The new application asks that the store’s daily delivery times change from 7am-11pm to 5.30am-11pm.

A noise statement submitted with the application says that, should it be granted, there will be “no adverse impact” from earlier deliveries and the earlier activity is “not likely to give rise to justifiable complaints” as any noise will be below the required limit.

It also says that the main source of noise will come from delivery lorries manoeuvring into position, with at least one HGV passing the site every 15 minutes between 5am and 7.30am. During the monitoring period, a delivery to the store took place and lasted 22 minutes from arrival to departure.

The report states: “This confirms that the specific servicing contribution is in context with the area noise climate.

“The activity nose sources are not likely to be discernible against the current traffic flow noise, as experienced by the residents, without any loss of existing amenity.”

But community council member Peter Hamilton, who lives nearby, said this was not the case and neighbours were “dead against this”.

He said: “I’ve spoken to my neighbours about this and they are not happy.

“This coming in at 5.30 in the morning. . . that would be OK if it is a retail park but this is a residential area and it is totally unacceptable.

“Plus they are not complying with the original planning permission since they opened the shop; we’ve put in plenty of complaints about it and nothing has been done.”

Mr Hamilton said that lorries were supposed to turn off their noisy refrigeration units before they reached the shop and then then turn them back on when they left –but he claimed this never happened.

He asked his fellow members to “completely object to it”, going on to say that, despite the noise impact assessment, the deliveries were “extremely noisy” and people were continuously being woken up by delivery lorries.

North Berwick Community Council voted to object to the application.

An Aldi spokesperson said: “We have applied to change our delivery times to ensure we offer all our customers fresh and full displays from the moment the store opens.

“We will continue to review all existing conditions to ensure we remain fully compliant at all times.”