Neighbours of a derelict office block say the sound of a loud alarm relentlessly going off has been making their lives a misery.

Frustrated residents have complained about the disturbance coming from Becket House in Canterbury, which is the former offices of BT.

The huge building in New Dover Road, which BT vacated last year, has planning permission to be converted into flats.

But work cannot start until the issues are resolved over water contamination at Stodmarsh Nature Reserve, which is restricting new numerous developments from going ahead.

The owners of the building, Telereal Trillium, installed the alarm system last month following reports of an intruder.

But neighbours have complained it has been going off unprovoked for days on end and often in the evening.

Management consultant Tim Manning, who lives next door, says there is a constant anxiety for those living nearby.

“It’s really given us all a nightmare time,” he said.

“We’ve had it going off intermittently for 15 or 16 days, day and night, which is very frustrating because I work from home.

“If you’re near a window or at night time, it’s a continuous sound which is hard to filter out.

“And even when it stops, you find yourself just waiting for it to start again, so there’s this constant anxiety.

“Will it go off tonight when I’m trying to sleep, will it go off tomorrow during the conference call?

“The trouble is, we don’t know who administers the site or the alarm or what to do next.”

Also affected has been neighbour Ignazio Mostallino, a family man with two children, who also largely works from home.

“It’s been unacceptable because I work in finance for a bank and spend a lot of time on the phone, “ he said.

“I’ve been on calls with the alarm going off and had people on the other end of the phone asking if everything is all right.

“Sometimes it was going off every 15 minutes and into the evenings, disturbing our children as they were trying to do their homework.”

Neighbours have now set up a Whatsapp group to communicate and recently complained about the noise to Canterbury City Council.

This week, a spokesman for the authority said: “We have received four complaints about a noisy alarm at Becket House.

"Our officers got in touch with the managing agent for the property and contractors were due to be contacted to be sent out to silence it.

"We hope this has resolved the issue.”