Sound systems confiscated from noisy neighbours are being used to make sweet music.

Bradford Council's environmental protection team has the power to seize equipment from people who are making their neighbours' lives a misery with their loud music.

Now the hi-fis, DVD players, televisions and speakers are finding a good home with the Council's Youth Service which is working with youngsters on music projects.

Councillor Anne Hawkes-worth, the executive member for environment and culture, said: "A lot of this equipment is high quality and it's a shame that the owners of it use it to make other peoples' lives a misery.

"It's good to see that the confiscated equipment is now going to people who can really benefit from it, rather than it being destroyed."

The Environmental Protection team deals with complaints from residents about excessive noise.

The officers have the power to serve a noise abatement order on residents to prevent them from continuing to cause a nuisance. If this is ignored, the equipment can be seized under a forfeiture order granted by the magistrates' court.

Last year the Council's environmental health department received 2,209 complaints about noise, 899 of which were about loud music.

They also completed five seizures.

The equipment handed to the Youth Service in the initiative was three portable televisions, one television with combined DVD player, five hi-fi systems, a karaoke system, two amplifiers, five pairs of speakers, three large televisions, seven video recorders, one turntable and one CD recorder.

In Bradford, officers have a range of powers to deal with noise problems and environmental health staff have started working in partnership with community mediation service, Community Accord.

A survey last summer claimed that Bradford is the second worst place in the country for neighbour noise.

The study by insurance firm Direct Line said one in ten homeowners had problems with their neighbours, but they were scared to do anything about it or did not know what their legal rights were.

It showed the most common complaints included loud music and barking dogs.

Bradford was the second worst place for neighbour noise, with only Liverpool receiving more complaints.