Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to send a warning letter to the complainant about a noise nuisance. From the information we have seen there is insufficient evidence of fault to warrant an investigation. Nor do we consider the complainant has suffered enough personal injustice to justice our involvement.

The complaint

1. The complainant, I shall call Mrs X, says the Council has treated her unfairly by issuing a warning about noise nuisance.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mrs X including the Council’s response to her complaint.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Councils must investigate complaints about issues that could be a ‘statutory nuisance’. The noise complained about might be loud music, barking dogs, noisy neighbours, rowdy pubs, or noise from industrial, trade or business property.
6. For a noise to count as a 'statutory nuisance' it must either:

• Unreasonably and substantially interfere with the use or enjoyment of a home or other premises; and/or
• Injure health or be likely to injure health

7. An Environmental Health Officer will usually need to witness the statutory nuisance. They will then make an independent judgement, considering matter such as the level of noise, its length, timing, and/or location. before deciding whether a nuisance has occurred. The use of noise monitoring equipment it not necessary.
8. If the officer decides a statutory nuisance is happening, or will happen in the future, councils must serve an abatement notice. This requires whoever is responsible to stop or restrict the noise. If someone does not comply with an abatement notice they can be prosecuted and fined.
9. In this case the Council says it received a complaint about loud music. An officer visited the site and witness loud music coming from Mrs X’s home for 15 minutes. He deemed this to be loud enough to affect other residents use and enjoyment of their properties.
10. The Council decided to issue a warning letter to the person registered as lead council taxpayer at Mrs X’s address.
11. From the information available the Council has followed the procedure would expect to see. And, while I understand Mrs X believes she has been unfairly treated, I do not consider the receipt of a warning letter to be a significant personal injustice.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault to warrant an investigation. Nor do we consider she has suffered sufficient personal injustice to justify our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman