Residents next to the large house building site in the village of Wilsden, near Bradford were woken up at 2am with the noise of thumping wackers.

The workers were up preparing the ground for another gang to get an early start later that morning at the site with planning for 82 homes.

Bradford and Keighley Magistrates’ heard that neighbours of the Harron Homes scheme on Crack Lane were woken up by the sound of workmen entering the site in the early hours of June 10 this year.

Bradford Council laywers said: “Neighbours, when they heard an industrial device operating at 2am, became quite distressed and annoyed that they had been woken.”

He added that residents had gone out to complain to the workmen, but were “ignored”.

Work only ceased shortly after 3.15am when police arrived and “encouraged workmen to stop

Magistrate Carl Davids fined the house builder £3,334 and ordered Harron Homes to pay court costs of £1,364.

He added: “We are not going to tolerate people working with wackers at two or three o’clock in the morning. That is absolutely ridiculous.

“We want to send that message out to all those builders who are breaking the law.”