"FOWL" play is being called on Craven District Council for serving a noise abatement notice on a chicken.

The order was made by the environmental health department after it received complaints from a resident in Eastby, but the move has raised the hackles of the parish council.

The complainant's feathers had been ruffled by a cockerel, owned by John Jones, of Kirk Lane, which was allegedly crowing before 7am.

The renegade rooster was deemed to be creating a noise nuisance and Mr Jones was served a notice asking him to do something about it.

Embsay-with-Eastby Parish Council has classed the whole scenario as "ridiculous".

Parish clerk Andrew Midgley said: "This council was appalled to hear that this notice had been served. The area is a rural area and farm animals, hens etc have made such noises since time immemorial."

Mr Jones had asked the parish council for its support, and while it felt unable to become embroiled in individual matters, it agreed to write a letter of complaint to Craven District Council saying the course of action was "wholly inappropriate and ridiculous".

"We obviously cannot get too involved in matters like this, but we felt it appropriate to let the district council know that we were unhappy with the way they had dealt with this. Mr Jones was extremely distressed about it all," said parish council chairman Roberta Cowley.

She added that Mr Jones had had chickens on his smallholding for at least 20 years and had never had a problem like this before.

Mr Jones has passed the matter to his solicitor, Simon Catterall, who has lodged an appeal to have the notice lifted.

Mr Catterall said the district council had to show that the cockerel was causing a nuisance.

"We believe we have strong grounds to fight our client's case and look forward to presenting the matter to the magistrates," said Mr Catterall.

Lindsey Quinn, environmental health manager with Craven District Council said in a statement to the Herald: "As the abatement notice is the subject of an appeal to the magistrates' court, I do not feel it is appropriate to comment at this moment in time."