Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Ms B’s complaint about the Council’s responses to her complaints of noise nuisance from her neighbours. As Ms B has moved away, further consideration of the complaint would not achieve any more for Ms B.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Ms B, says the Council failed to take action against her neighbours, who were making noise and preventing her from quietly enjoying her home.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
3. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I have considered the information Ms B provided when she made her complaint. I sent a draft decision to Ms B and invited comments before I made my final decision.

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What I found

5. Ms B has explained she was disturbed by noise from two different neighbours. In February 2019 she complained that construction workers outside her house were playing music loudly and having noisy conversations. Ms B also complains about noisy children running and shouting, loud conversations at night and loud jumping.
6. The Council says it sent diary sheets to Ms B, but she did not return these. And as Ms B has now moved out of the area and there is no further investigation or action the Council can take.
7. While Ms B considers the Council should have done more to deal with noise, there is nothing more the Ombudsman could achieve for her. Ms B has now moved away from the property. Even if the Ombudsman had evidence to say the Council had failed to properly investigate Ms B’s complaints, there is no further action he could recommend as Ms B no longer lives in the property

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Final decision

8. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because further consideration of the complaint would not achieve any more for Ms B.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman