A motorcycle club has vowed to take its fight to turn a piece of Basildon land into a racing track all the way to Europe.

Basildon Motorcycle Training Club has been trying to get its own practice ground for three years.

Its chairman, Alf Viccaray, says more than 1,000 youngsters from Southend, Castle Point, Thurrock and the whole of Essex will continue to ride on the streets unless they have their own track.

Basildon Council refused permission for a site in Christy Way, Southfield Industrial Area, Basildon, to be turned into a training ground after a noise test was carried out in the summer.

Now the club has called in acoustic experts to survey the amount of noise pollution a biking track would produce.

The acoustic report said noise pollution could be avoided as long as a two-metre fence surrounded the site and each bike did not go above 85 decibels.

Mr Viccaray, 69, a former speedway driver who in his day regularly rode the Wall of Death in Southend, said he is happy to make the necessary changes. He said: "I have got a decibel counter which can check the noise.

"If bikes are above the noise level they can be altered quite easily with silencers which are also cheap. I will take this appeal to Europe if I have to."

Mr Viccaray has pledged the site will be professionally run and non-profit making for boys and girls from the ages of four years upwards.

A spokesman for Basildon Council said: "We received a number of complaints from local residents. That was the reason the application was turned down."

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.