Newcastle upon Tyne City Council (19 016 646)

Category : Environment and regulation > Antisocial behaviour

Decision : Not upheld

Decision date : 01 Sep 2020

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: Mr D says the Council should take action against his neighbours for noise nuisance and anti-social behaviour. The Ombudsman has discontinued the investigation because further consideration would not likely lead to a different outcome or add to what the Council has already told Mr D.

The complaint

  1. The complainant (whom I refer to as Mr D) says the Council placed people with learning difficulties next to his home resulting in a noise nuisance and anti-social behaviour (ASB).

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. 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
  • the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, 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, or
  • we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

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

  1. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

  1. I have examined the information provided by Mr D and the Council.
  2. I sent both parties my draft decision and considered their responses.

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What I found

What happened

  1. The Ombudsman has previously considered a complaint from Mr D about the same issues in 2018. We told Mr D that we could not investigate the placement of individuals next to his home because the Council had not had a chance to investigate whether there was a noise nuisance.
  2. Since then Mr D has been in contact with the Council through 2019. The Council, in line with its procedures, offered to install a digital noise recorder in Mr D’s home to assess if there was a statutory noise nuisance: Mr D refused. The Council subsequently explained to Mr D that it must be able to verify whether there is a nuisance before enforcement action can be taken. It also said its ASB policy is set up to address existing ASB rather than possible ASB.
  3. Mr D has detailed the various incidents with his neighbours which are typically: banging doors, swearing, and loud voices during daytime.

Reasons for my decision

  1. The Council has correctly explained to Mr D that it must be able to verify whether a statutory noise nuisance is happening before it can consider any enforcement action. Given that Mr D has refused to allow use of the digital recorder the Council is unable to progress its investigation. The Ombudsman will not look at the issue of the placement of Mr D’s neighbours until the Council has been able to conduct a full noise nuisance investigation. That is because the placement is only an issue requiring investigation if there is an injustice caused by a statutory noise nuisance.
  2. The Ombudsman will not assess if there is a statutory noise nuisance, that is for the Council to do. I do not see that further investigation at this point by the Ombudsman would lead to a different outcome or alter what Mr D has already been told by the Council.

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Final decision

  1. I have discontinued the investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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