ESSO is having to splash out £2m on beating a noise problem which has sprung up in the new cataly-tic cracker which drives its refinery at Fawley.

The noise has been branded as "sounding like a jet engine" and has sparked numerous complaints from people living in the Holbury area near the refinery.

The efforts being made by the company were outlined by Esso's Fawley Refinery technical manager Malcolm Garrow to a meeting of New Forest District Council's environmental protection liaison committee.

He explained that when the £75 million cracker was built, the silencer had insufficient capacity to overcome the noise.

Esso had done what it could to minimise the noise, but the answer was to build on a new 45-tonne silencer and widen the stack, he said.

"We are looking at £2m and completion at the end of April 2003," he added.