CHILDREN and teachers are coming to school tired after nights of broken sleep caused by noise believed to be from the nearby Lumbercube mill, a Rotorua school principal says.
And a school parent says eastside people are so tired he is worried "someone will get killed".
Noise complaints around Rotorua's eastern suburbs spiked overnight Thursday with 79 complaints received by the Rotorua Lakes Council.
On Wednesday, just six complaints were received.
Lynmore School principal Lorraine Taylor said while the school was not initially affected, it had had problems since February.
"Since then we have had intermittent noise that affects the four classrooms nearest the fields. It's a loud booming noise that stops and starts."
Ms Taylor said one of her pupils described the noise as "a huge monster walking across the ground".
"It's an annoying noise, but over the term it has become cumulative and children, parents and some of our teachers are hearing it all night and getting a disturbed sleep, they are not getting a break."
She said students and teachers were arriving to school tired and grumpy. "Which will inevitability impact on people's health and wellbeing.
Lumbercube.
"If we could get the night time noise to stop it would be a great step."
Ms Taylor said no one wanted the mill to close, but something had to be done urgently.
"I empathise with the council and Lumbercube, we know noise is hard to pin down and it's very difficult to monitor."
According to the council, on Thursday night an independent acoustic expert took readings around the eastside industrial area. In addition he placed a data logger into one of the hotspot areas and will analyse that data soon.
Council staff were also out last night taking their own noise readings.
A concerned parent who lives in Lynmore and works from home said he was suffering from a lack of sleep and the constant noise had "got into my head".
The man, who did not want to be named, said his children went to Lynmore School and while they were more robust, they were tossing and turning during the night.
"It gets in my head now, I don't usually get headaches, but I have a constant pressure in my head, we've listened to it for six months."
The man said he thought the council and Lumbercube had already had plenty of time to sort the problem out.
"When I do go out of town for work, I'm just about falling asleep at the wheel. I'm really worried about other people in the community, I honestly think someone will get killed because of this. I really don't care what happens to them, I'd like them to disappear actually.
"Council have also dropped the ball on this as well. They could be in the middle of the forest making as much noise as they want to. How can they get away with doing something like that in this day and age?"
Lumbercube media spokesman Brent Devcich said he did not know when final noise testing would be complete, but the company was doing all it could to resolve the issue and were constantly talking with the council about the problem.
