North Hertfordshire District Council has not done enough to protect neighbours from noise pollution from a nearby business, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has found.

When a neighbour complained that a business next door was causing noise nuisance from very early in the morning, the council investigated.

For nearly two years the council monitored the situation, both through the neighbour’s own recordings and through its own noise monitoring equipment and by visiting the site. The council asked the site manager to mitigate the noise, and this produced some short-term improvement, but the neighbour still complained regularly about intrusive noise.

The neighbour made a formal complaint to the council about its lack of progress to resolve the situation. It acknowledged the situation had gone on for too long, and that informal measures had not worked.

It apologised for not serving an abatement notice sooner, but that it had since done so.

The neighbour complained to the Ombudsman that the council had not thought to acknowledge the stress, anxiety, time, and trouble she had been put to over the previous years.

The Ombudsman investigated and found that, on balance, had the council acted more swiftly to serve a formal abatement notice, it is likely the business would have put measures in place to reduce noise sooner.

Ms Amerdeep Somal, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman said:

“The law is clear that, where a council believes there to be a statutory nuisance, it needs to act by serving an abatement notice and can only delay serving such a notice by seven days.

“In this case, the council tried for two years to resolve the matter by informal action without first deciding whether the noise the neighbour experienced amounted to a statutory nuisance. This left the neighbour suffering from the impact of the noise from the nearby business for far too long and was avoidable had the council acted swiftly

“I am pleased the council has agreed to my recommendations to improve its services so other people in its area faced by noise nuisance will not face the same long struggle as the neighbour in this case.”

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman remedies injustice and shares learning from investigations to help improve public, and adult social care, services. In this case the council has agreed to pay the neighbour £3,000 to recognise the impact on her quality of life and inability to enjoy her own home its delay caused

The Ombudsman has the power to make recommendations to improve processes for the wider public. In this case the council will circulate guidance to staff reminding them of their duties.

Article date: 24 October 2024