THE future of a popular Dorset shooting school hangs in the balance, after district officials served it with an enforcement notice for being too loud.

A government planning inspector is currently considering the evidence from a hearing, held at Purbeck District Council last month, that could spell disaster for the Purbeck Shooting School.

Officials, who say they acted following a complaint, issued an enforcement notice on the school at Puddletown Road, near Wareham, last December.

They cited the gunfire as exceeding a 55db level which was affecting residents living within one kilometre of the site.

However, school senior instructor and managing director Graham Brown appealed against the enforcement notice, arguing through his solicitor the noise level originally set down was always impossible to stay within and had been breached regularly for more than a decade without any enforcement action.

During the hearing, at Purbeck District Council’s Westport House headquarters, evidence was also heard from former councillor and planning board member Malcolm Shakesby, who explained the original 55db passed by the authority in 2003 came into being without any professional or technical recommendations.

In his final address, Mr Brown’s solicitor Lionel Fynn said: “The appellant has ample evidence to show that beyond any reasonable doubt, never mind on balance of probabilities, the condition was breached from the date of the granting of the permanent consent until the date of the enforcement notice on a regular and continuous basis, because the normal changes and variations in climate conditions have made this inevitable.”

According to Mr Fynn, to establish grounds for appeal Mr Brown has to prove that the use complained about started more than 10 years before the notice issued last December.

He added: “The council after this extraordinary length of time has suddenly decided that it wants to enforce the condition in its original form.

“The chances of even a week going by without further breaches are remote. Consequently, if the appeal is dismissed further breach is inevitable no matter what the appellant does failing closing the operation altogether which is exactly what he would have to do.”