The music from an ice cream van has been a staple of British summers for decades but one driver has been told to keep quiet in an ‘unbelievable’ noise complaint.
Mark Edwards has been an ice cream man in Tonyrefail, Rhondda Cynon Taf, for over 20 years without any issues.
Recently, he was approached by the council after someone put in a noise complaint about his van music being played after 8pm in June.
‘Twenty-odd years and I have never had anything like this at all. It’s unbelievable,’ Edwards said of the council letter.
He said he was ‘not [going] to let one individual spoil it for everybody else’ after his employer told him to stop operating in the area to avoid fines.
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Instead of ditching the area, he’s said the locals know ‘roughly’ what time he’s going to be there and he just ‘toot[s] the horn in each street’.
‘They all come out and enjoy it,’ Edwards said, adding the complainers are ‘not going to beat me’.
The council confirmed that the law required a 7pm cut-off time for any ice cream vans to use their music but this doesn’t ‘prevent them from trading’.
Edwards’ ice cream dilemma had been shared on social media, prompting support from hundreds of people as well as his local community.
Amy Elwood, from Trebanog, told The BBC: ‘It’s a bit silly to be honest, Mark is not harming anybody. I don’t see what the problem is about.’
Eleven-year-old Lexi said the music should continue as it’s tradition, adding: ‘Its exciting, it’s nice to have ice cream in the hot weather.’
‘I knew I was pretty popular but I didn’t think I was as popular as I am now – it’s just gone completely crazy,’ Edwards said of the support.
He went on to question if the late night rule was ‘outdated’, arguing that the chimes only play for a few seconds at a time.
‘With local businesses going down, the last thing we need is to go out of business,’ he added.
‘It is a dying game as it is to be honest. There are less and less of us about.’
The council said it considered the matter closed after fulfilling its legal duty to investigate noise complaints and enforcing the rules.
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