Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to take action over noise nuisance from her neighbour’s property. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained about domestic noise from her neighbour’s property which is coming from a conversion of a garage to residential accommodation. She says she can hear ordinary household noises such as talking, vacuuming and flushing toilets during normal living hours and is disturbed by it.

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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. 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, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

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

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mrs X says she can hear domestic noise from her neighbour’s house after they converted the garage into living accommodation some years ago. She says she asked the Council to take action, but it told her that it could not carry out enforcement over a complaint about domestic noise. This is because the level of disturbance does not meet the criteria in the Environmental Protection Act 1990 which would enable it to serve an abatement notice.
7. The Council investigated the planning requirements for the conversion in 2020 in an enforcement case which was closed because there was no breach of planning regulations identified.
8. The Ombudsman may not question the merits of decisions which have been made in a proper manner. This means we will not intervene in disagreements about the merits of decisions.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to take action over noise nuisance from her neighbour’s property. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman