A PALLET recycling firm blamed for shattering a neighbourhood's peace faces a fight to stay in operation.

Pallet Solutions began repairing wooden pallets from a site in Halliwell Industrial Estate last spring.

But people living in nearby Avoncliff Close said they had been disturbed by repeated banging from the site, complaining the company did not have permission to operate from the site.

Inspectors from Bolton Council visited the site and asked the firm to submit a planning application to change the land's legal use from an overflow car park to a recycling works.

However, councillors refused the application in the face of opposition from residents and ordered the firm to close by November.

Site owner Bizspace is appealing against the decision and Pallet Solutions will continue operating until an independent planning inspector rules on the case.

Avoncliffe Close resident Fred Bradley, aged 66, said people have until January 23 to make representatins to the inspectorate.

In the meantime, he and his neighbours are having to put up with more noise.

"It's absolutely horrendous," he said.

"Why should the landlord be able to lease this land out for this when it's supposed to be an overflow car park."

The firm takes in pallets from businesses across the area, sorts them by size and breaks up the irreparable ones to patch up the others, before stacking them for redistribution.

Mr Bradley said: "I look out of my window and see more than 1,000 pallets. They work all day with nail guns and forklift trucks driving up and down and it makes a terrible row."

In 2003, the council issued an enforcement notice to stop another firm using the site to power-wash steel containers after residents collected a 60-name petition against the work.

No-one from Bizspace, which has owned the site for seven years, was available for comment yesterday.

Representatives of Pallet Solutions also refused to comment.

A Bolton Council spokesperson said: "An enforcement notice was served on Bizspace on October 29, 2007, calling for a cessation of the recycling operation at the site.

"The notice was due to take effect from November 23, 2007, but the company submitted an appeal against the notice to the Planning Inspectorate and we must now await the result of this appeal."