Allerdale council has called a public meeting to listen to residents' concerns over noise levels generated from M-Sport’s new evaluation centre.

People living near the centre, being built at the firm's Dovenby Hall base, are worried that a new test track will see increased noise pollution.

So Allerdale have proposed the meeting, which they say they want as many residents to attend as possible, on Thursday at Bridekirk Dovenby School, from 7pm.

When the application for the noise management plan was submitted to Allerdale, some residents raised concerns about the potential impact of the track.

At the time, Amanda Bell, of The Cottages, said: “I am a staff nurse that works a variety of shifts including many night shifts and I find the noise already present from M-Sport distressing.

“It limits my ability to sleep, therefore potentially making it unsafe for me to carry out my work in a busy hospital environment.”

Michelle Magrath, who also lives in the village, said testing was done on a day with very little wind, which could have had an impact on the results. She said: “On windy days the noise would be far greater. I could hear it constantly as I walked to Bridekirk some 1. 5 miles away.”

The amended noise management plan is to ensure that noise from the site does not cause a nuisance to nearby properties and is part of conditions attached to the planning consent.

The panel at the meeting will include representatives from Allerdale's planning and environmental health departments, however M-Sport and their representatives have not been invited.

Allerdale wrote to local residents inviting them to the meeting. The letter said: “The meeting will be an opportunity to be briefed by Allerdale BC officers about the application and for those officers to listen to comments and respond to queries.

"It will cover the scope of the application, timescales and the council’s current position within the process."

But it also stated: “It is not intended to be a forum for discussion about the M-Sport facility in any wider terms.”

Northern Developments, who are building the facility for M-Sport, did not want to make a comment on the public meeting.