THEY are the neighbours from hell.

Music blares out at all hours of the day and night, siblings shout insults at everyone they meet and dodgy deals are done in the living room.

The Battersbys of Coronation Street - headed by mouthy mum Janice, played by Accrington-born actress Vicky Entwistle - are definitely not the good neighbours of Australian soapland.

But in real-life, more and more people are finding themselves living next door to Battersby clones.

Requests for help from Blackburn with Darwen Council to deal with noise have risen by more than 20 per cent over the last three years.

The council's environmental health division dealt with more than 750 cases of noise nuisance and handled a similar number of requests for advice and information last year.

And time is running out for people who drive their neighbours to distraction - be it by letting their dogs bark all day, playing loud music or vacuuming at the crack of dawn.

Craig Sharp, senior environmental health officer at Blackburn with Darwen Council, said there were alternatives to the action taken by Curly Watts in the TV soap when the Battersbys' music drove him to despair - throwing their CD player out of the window. "If someone complains to us we will first give advice on how to sort it out themselves. If they feel they cannot do that we will start an investigation and ask people to keep a record of the noise which will provide us with vital evidence if the case goes to court," said Mr Sharp.

Council officers will approach the neighbours informally but if no agreement can be reached court action may be the only option.

Mr Sharp said: "We can serve a noise abatement notice which tells people what they have to do to stop causing the nuisance. If they contravene that it is a criminal offence, punishable with a fine of up to £5,000."

For council tenants, there is another sanction available. Tenancy services officers Paul Crowther and Michael Przybysz deal specifically with problem neighbours, whether the problem is noise, drug abuse or handling stolen property.

The officers can take nuisance tenants to court and ultimately have them evicted.

Mr Crowther said: "Of the 11,000 council tenants in the borough, we have only had to evict a handful. We find that once tenants learn that we are taking it seriously, they abandon their house anyway."

Nuisance neighbours are regarded as having made themselves intentionally homeless so the council has no obligation to rehouse them.

Mr Crowther said: "Presumably they go into private sector housing. It could be said that is pushing the problem elsewhere. But the fact that we have taken action against them might make them think twice about being a nuisance in the future."

In all cases of noise nuisance, the council will try to sort it out before it reaches court.

People who are noisy because they cannot afford to carpet their council flat can be found rugs to reduce the noise and people whose dogs bark all day can get advice from the council's dog control unit. Often a letter from the council is enough to make people quieten things down.

Craig Sharp said: "We ask people to try to sort it out at the outset because, although we won't hesitate to take the legal route if necessary, they still have to live next door to them."

Blackburn with Darwen Council will mount a display at Darwen Market on Friday to highlight noise problems and demonstrate noise monitoring equipment.

Parents can bring their children along throughout the day to find out how loud they are.

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