THE sound of silence will fall on a funfair when a 20-minute pause will take place to allow hornblowing to take centre stage.

Operators of the bi-annual fair in Ripon Market Place have been told to apply the interval between 8.50pm and 9.10pm each night as a condition of the entertainment going ahead.

Ripon's stand-in hornblower John Richmond, a former mayor, had asked for the fairground to be moved to an out-of-city centre site after he was unable to make himself heard above the din of fairground rides and thudding music.

But Harrogate Borough Council refused to move the funfair, deciding instead to broker the 20-minute curfew as a compromise.

After hearing of the move, Mr Richmond said: "This is a step in the right direction. There is always a compromise somewhere along the line and we shall just see how it goes."

The council's estates chief Bernard White said the fair operators had agreed to the break so the hornblower be heard.

The fair is a popular Ripon tradition visiting the market place for the Bank Holiday towards the end of May and as part of the St Wilfrid's celebrations at the beginning of August.

Mr White said they did not want to remove the fair from the city centre because there was no suitable alternative.

This was underlined when the market place underwent an extensive makeover and the fair was stopped for two years before making a return.