Beckhams warned over noisy party

They wouldn't have a hope of getting on the guest list. So environmental health officers could be inviting themselves to David and Victoria Beckham's next party after neighbours complained about the noise of their pre-World Cup celebration in May.

Five hundred guests including David Cameron, the Duchess of York and rap star P-Diddy danced at the couple's Hertfordshire home until the early hours, with music blaring out across the grounds from loud speakers. The noise was so loud the local council hotline was jammed with calls from neighbours unable to sleep.

'Perhaps if it was a Friday or Saturday night we could have let this pass,' one villager said. 'But it was a Sunday and unlike many of the guests at the party we had work to go to the next day and the noise was terrible.' Another resident said: 'The loud thudding from the music was completely out of order.'

Victoria Beckham's father Tony Adams and the party's organiser Peregrine Armstrong-Jones later attended an emergency meeting of East Hertfordshire Council's environmental health committee, where they were questioned for an hour.

Minutes of the meeting, which was held last month, concluded that environmental health officers would monitor sound levels in the future to 'protect the interests of residents'.

A council source said: 'We have a statutory duty to investigate all complaints on behalf of the residents and if that means sending environmental officers to future Beckham events, so be it.'

A source close to the couple said: 'They will not be happy about the prospect of a corduroy-suited council official with noise monitoring equipment coming along to future parties to keep an eye on them.'