A dog owner who left his four dogs to bark so excessively that his neighbours felt like moving out of their home has been fined.

Glen Mount, from Coates, near Whittlesey, was fined a total of £750 and ordered to pay £200 compensation to the complainants this week after being found guilty of three offences of breaching a noise abatement notice. He was also ordered to pay £600 in costs.

Peterborough magistrates heard that Mr Mount had left his dogs to bark in their kennels for hours during the day in his rear garden.

Following complaints by his neighbours, an investigation by Fenland District Council’s environmental health team led to him being served with a noise abatement notice in December 2013.

The notice required him to take steps to stop the dogs’ barking being a noise nuisance to local residents.

Mr Mount was found to have failed to comply with the notice on three occasions in March and April 2014.

Dawn Sadler, FDC’s senior environmental health officer said: “The council never wants an investigation to end in prosecution and it is not something we take lightly.

We always work hard with both the complainants and the dog owners to resolve the problem.

“But when the nuisance continues we have no alternative but to prosecute.

“Most dog owners are responsible and realise they have to take steps if their dogs are barking excessively.

“In this case, Mr Mount did not think the barking was a nuisance and breached the notice several times.

“We carried out our own noise monitoring and found the barking was continuing to cause a nuisance to the complainants.”