RESIDENTS living close to the i360 construction site have been left with little sleep after a constant banging noise kept them up all night.

Those living near-by alerted the owners of the tower to the loud noise at 6.30pm.

They said it was keeping their children awake.

One of those affected Mark Thorogood said the sounds coming from the site "is just relentless".

The company said the noise had been caused by the engineering works platform being left at the bottom of the tower rather than at the top.

Alis Knowles posted on Facebook: "Thanks for another sleepless night. I live in Regency Square and I've heard the banging noises from the tower on several occasions over the past few months in bad weather.

"There's a lot of hotels in Regency Square and nearby so that means a lot of guests are going to be disturbed by this sadly."

Posting on Facebook at 10.47pm, Audrey Thomas wrote: "Can someone stop this noise now!? 

"My 7 year old child is still awake (and got to go to school tomorrow) he is scared of this noise, which has been relentless for hours and cannot go to sleep!

"This is ridiculous!"

Keith Tomlinson added: "Thanks for giving us a sleepless night tonight care of this unbelievable noise, from all the residents of the Abbotts flats, directly opposite the i360."

British Airways i360 chief executive Eleanor Harris said: “On behalf of British Airways i360, I would like to sincerely apologise to anyone who was affected by the noise from our site last night.

“The noise was caused by cables hitting the tower as a result of a temporary engineering works platform being left at the bottom of the tower, rather than at the top of the tower. This was a mistake by our contractors Hollandia. Unfortunately we were unable to resolve the issue overnight.

“In future, we will ensure the platform is parked at the top of the tower at the end of each day, which will minimise any noise.

“The excessive noise created was not in keeping with the care and consideration we give to ensuring our construction works have minimal impact on residents and we have fallen short on this occasion.

“We will do everything we can to keep noise levels to a minimum in future, however there may be occasions when high winds will cause some noise until the pod is completed towards the end of March, when test flights on the pod will begin and the cables will be fully tensioned for the first time.

“We will be writing to our neighbours who live within 200 metres of the site who were most adversely affected last night, with a personal apology from me and offering them free tickets for British Airways i360 flights, as a gesture of goodwill.

“I must apologise again and stress we will do everything we can to minimise disruption in future.”