As millions of Spaniards usher in the New Year tonight, Antonio Rus will be at home covering his ears.

He has been fighting for more than ten years to silence the bells of Jaén Cathedral, which ring out every 15 minutes and are, unfortunately, only a stone’s throw from his flat.

“It is as if they were ringing in my bedroom. It is driving me mad,” he said.

Mr Rus is hoping that this New Year’s Eve will be the last that he has to contend with the din, with the superior court of Andalusia, the highest regional tribunal, ruling that the local council should measure the noise the bells make.

“The ideal situation would be if they would measure the noise today before they ring for New Year’s Eve,” he said.

This seems unlikely, and instead the long-suffering resident of the Spanish capital of the olive oil industry will have to endure another night with little sleep.

The court’s ruling marks what could the end of Mr Rus’s long fight with the authorities to cut the noise. He started his fight in 1997, claiming that the sound of the bells was above legal limits. Two years later Jaén city council ruled that the ringing was “intolerable” but the claim was left on file for “administrative reasons”.

Mr Rus kept up his campaign for peace and quiet, claiming that his rights had been infringed because of an administrative error. This year the superior court ruled that the council was at fault and ordered its officials to measure the noise levels again.

In Spain, a country renowned for noise, the maximum noise level allowed during the day is 55 decibels and at night 45 decibels.

Mr Rus appears a lone voice in Jaén, where many believe that the bells of the 16th-century cathedral, which was designed by the renowned Renaissance architect Andrés Vandelvira, are far less bothersome than the noise pollution caused by traffic or the groups of young people who drink in the city centre.

One neighbour asked: “Why doesn’t Mr Rus simply move to another part of Jaén if he is bothered about the noise? The cathedral has been there much longer than he has.” Mr Rus’s struggle has won support from other parts of Spain. In 2002 a court declared that the din caused by the bells of a church in Villahoz, near Burgos, in northern Spain, was illegal. It said that the noise level was 88.9 decibels at night and 82.5 during the day.

A resident of Bétera in Valencia launched legal action against the local priest because the church bells rang 72 times a day. He said that he suffered insomnia and had to seek psychiatric treatment.

Another resident of San Sebastian in La Gomera, the Canary Islands, played heavy metal music at top volume outside the church to protest at the noise of the bells.

One council, in Baza, near Granada, fined the local church €600 (£440) for the noise caused by the church bells.

Many churches have opted to silence the bells at night or even use electronic versions during the day time to adjust the volume.

Maria del Mar, director of the Rosas Foundation, which is dedicated to bell ringing, said: “Bell ringers are more conscious of the laws these days. The amount of noise depends on the weight of the bells.”

Final appeal

An Oxfordshire pub landlord, Graham Taylor, burst into his local church mid-service in a fit of rage in 2005, after reaching the end of his tether with its bell-ringing schedule. The bells chimed every 15 minutes, and played the hymn Angel Song every three hours.

Source: Times database

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