Residents living near fields used for noisy motorcycle racing are set to have a quieter summer this year, after the erection of gates and fences designed to keep out bikes.

Councillor Martin Heywood and his wife, former councillor Jean Heywood, began a campaign around nine months ago to rid the fields, near The Campions and Allerton Road, of the bikers who have used the fields for scrambling for the past three years.

Residents complained that up to 30 motorbikes were being ridden illegally on the fields near there homes at any one time, forcing some people to suffer sleepless nights, noise and pollution.

Measures to prevent the bikers include: two kissing gates, put up by Hertfordshire County Council; fencing put up by local landowners Lyndhurst Farm and the United Synagogue, and police prosecuting offenders.

Councillor Heywood, who called two public meetings on the issue, thanked Hertfordshire police, the landowners, county council and residents for their efforts, adding: "It is a good success story."

June 26, 2002 15:30