Bradford people are being given advice on cutting down unnecessary burglar alarm noise, as part of Noise Action Day tomorrow.

The National Society for Clean Air and Environment Protection hopes the day will highlight the problems of noise pollution and encourage people to come up with noise-reduction schemes.

According to Bradford Council's environmental protection service, burglar alarms lead to the most emergency call-outs.

Now the Council has drawn up a series of ideas to cut down on unnecessary alarm noise.

Richard Wixey, director of environmental protection, said: "We get more than 200 complaints a year from people whose sleep is disturbed because of unnecessary noise from intruder alarms. It is becoming a major problem."

Councillor Anne Hawkesworth (Con, Ilkley), Executive Member for Environment, said: "One of the biggest problems is that householders do not pass on to the Council details of keyholders to their homes when they are on holiday.

"As a result, when an alarm goes off in the middle of the night our officers often have to call out an engineer to disconnect the system, leaving residents to pick up the bill on their return."

Councillor Hawkesworth said if residents did not feel secure enough to leave burglar alarm numbers and keys with neighbours, details could be left in confidence with the Council.

The Council is also recommending that people have their alarms regularly serviced and fit a cut-off device.

Richard Wixey said: "The environmental potection srvice also has powers to deal with loud music, people doing DIY, and noise from pubs and clubs, construction sites and industry."

Environmental health manager Brian Anderson said the number of complaints had increased over the past year.

"There has been a five per cent increase in the total number of complaints about noise pollution," he said.

Anyone wishing to leave their keyholder details should write to Environment Protection, Town Hall, Kirkgate, Shipley, West Yorkshire BD18 3EJ.

Bradford Council received 1,831 noise nuisance complaints from April 2000 to March 2001.

The top five complaints were: amplified noise (578 complaints), barking dogs (317), intruder alarms (210), industrial noise (145), pubs and clubs (98).

The environmental protection service has the power to investigate and possibly issue a noise abatement notice under the Environmental Protection Act. Further complaints can lead to heavy fines.