Residents' relief as store told to stop late-night deliveries

The Duke Street store, which opened in September, had come under fire for taking deliveries at around 1am every night.

Neighbours said they had been unable to sleep ever since the deliveries began. Tesco took over the store from previous occupant Scotmid, which only had daytime deliveries.

After the News highlighted the problem, the store agreed to halt deliveries between 11pm and 7am, and has now been told by city officials that it must stop from 8pm to 7am.

Neighbour Lindsay Hutton, 27, whose bedroom overlooks the shop's delivery bay, said she had not been able to sleep for weeks because of the noise.

She was visited last week by council noise control officers, and said: "They came at night and said that not all of the noise, but some of it, like the sound of the cages, was over the limit. They said it was a problem and they would speak to their boss about it.

"On Monday the director of Tesco phoned noise control and said that there wouldn't be any deliveries between ten at night and six in the morning."

She was then delighted to find that even more stringent controls would be invoked: "The noise control man said he'd contacted the planning permission people and there was a law from 1987 that no deliveries can be made from 8pm until 7am in the morning.

"It's just nice to know it's going to go back to peace."

A council spokeswoman confirmed that a 1987 planning condition on the building restricted loading and unloading to between 8pm and 7am.

She said: "We are glad that the situation will be resolved to everyone's satisfaction."

A spokeswoman for Tesco said she was unable to comment on the matter.

Lothians MSP Shirley-Anne Somerville said: "I'm pleased to hear that council staff have been able to find a solution and they deserve our thanks. What is disappointing is that Tesco thought it was OK to behave in this way in first place."