Summary: There is evidence of fault by the Council. The Community Protection Notice served on a neighbour due to anti-social behaviour was not worded in a way that it was enforceable. In addition, when the Council got legal advice on the notice, it did not review or revise it to ensure that it was relevant to the anti-social behaviour complained about. The Council’s apology and revision of procedures on wording and reviewing notices remedies the injustice caused.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I shall call Mrs X, complains the Council has not carried out adequate monitoring of breaches of a Community Protection Notice.

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What I have investigated

2. I have investigated events that happened from April 2020 onwards. The final section of this statement contains my reason(s) for not investigating the rest of the complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
4. 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)
5. 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

6. I read the papers put in by Mrs X and discussed the complaint with her.
7. I considered the Council’s comments about the complaint and any supporting documents it provided.
8. Mrs X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Key facts

9. The Council served a Community Protection Notice (CPN) on Mrs X’s neighbour in April 2020. This notice required Mrs X’s neighbour to:
• Ensure that they warned their neighbour before lighting any bonfires and only burnt dry material.
• Kept all noise to a respectable level between 8am and 10 pm and kept all noise to a minimum between 10pm and 8am.
10. Mrs X emailed the Council at the end of May about fires and noise from her neighbours party in the garden. The Council officer told Mrs X that they would get legal advice about whether there was enough evidence to enforce a breach of the CPN. The Council sent a letter to Mrs X’s neighbour. The Council also told Mrs X to contact the Environmental Protection team about her complaints about bonfires.
11. Mrs X sent monitoring logs to the Council in September 2020. The Council officer told her in October 2020 there was not enough evidence to prove the neighbour had breached the CPN. The officer visited and said that they ‘discussed noise monitoring and advised they would look at installing noise recording equipment’. The officer witnessed general household noise but nothing of concern during a two hour visit. The Council officer got legal advice that said ‘the Council would not say the CPN had been breached if it was noise generated from children not the parent who it served the notice on’.
12. The Council said it cancelled a monitoring visit in December 2020 due to the COVID 19 lockdown. Mrs X called the police due to noise problems on 23 December 2020. The Council told Mrs X that it could not install noise monitoring equipment due to COVID 19 restrictions and sent a reminder letter to her neighbour.
13. The Council sent an email to Mrs X about monitoring in March 2021. Mrs X said she didn’t want monitoring to take place. The CPN has now expired.

My analysis

14. The Council’s website says that anti social behaviour includes rowdy or inconsiderate behaviour and neighbour disputes. It says that noise from domestic property or smoke from garden bonfires is dealt with by the Environmental Protection team.
15. The Council’s website says that in response to a complaint to the Environmental Protection team it will send complainants a nuisance record sheet and the person complained about will be sent a warning letter. Then, after the nuisance record sheet is completed, if the case officer suspects there is a statutory nuisance a second warning letter is sent to the person complained about and officers will try to carry out monitoring visits. If officers do not visit a statutory nuisance then complainants will be advised on how to pursue their own legal action. The website says that complaints made outside office hours will be responded to by the team within 4 working days.
16. The Council served a CPN in April 2020 as it believed the issues were mainly anti-social behaviour. It has said that in April 2020 it was not aware at that point how long COVID-19 restrictions would be in place for and so expected to be able to carry out monitoring at some point.
17. The Council was aware that Mrs X was experiencing problems with her neighbours that needed monitoring. However, it did not consider noise was the main issue so did not install noise monitoring equipment initially. Having looked at the diary sheets Mrs X provided I can see that her complaints were about a wide range of anti-social behaviour and so I can understand why the CPN was used rather than noise monitoring.
18. In response to my further enquiries, the Council has said that it believes it could have improved three things during Mrs X’s complaint. I consider that the first two are fault.
19. Firstly, the Council should have reviewed the CPN once officers were aware of the legal advice that serving the CPN on the property owner did not mean that it applied to other members of the household. Officers did not consider if a different notice could be served in order to remedy this fault.
20. Second, the wording of the notice needed improvement to enable the Council to take enforcement action. The CPN described the noise levels Mrs X’s neighbour should comply with as ‘respectable’ and ‘minimal’. These are subjective and respectable levels of noise could mean different things to different people. The CPN also said the neighbour should tell Mrs X when she was going to have a bonfire. But, unless this was done in writing there would be no proof. In addition, officers would be unlikely to be able to decide if the bonfire material was wet or dry once the neighbour had burnt it. So, I consider the imprecise wording on the notice was fault.
21. The Council also said that it felt that it could have also managed Mrs X’s expectations in an improved way so she was aware of what the Council could achieve. While this is noted, I am not convinced the Council’s actions on this point amounted to fault.
22. The Council has said that it was at fault, as it could have dealt with the above areas of the case more effectively. It has said that if Mrs X continues to have problems with noise from her neighbours, it will consider installing noise monitoring equipment.
23. Mrs X has explained that she felt there has been no deterrent to her neighbour, as the Council did not enforce the CPN. In order to remedy her injustice, I consider the Council should apologise to Mrs X and ensure it improves its procedures to prevent similar problems in the future.

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Agreed action

24. The Council will write to Mrs X within one month of the date of the decision on this complaint to apologise that it could have dealt with her complaint more effectively.
25. The Council will review its procedures to ensure that the wording in Community Protection Notices is effective and that officers review them after any legal advice is received, within two months of the date of the decision on this complaint.

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Final decision

26. I have completed my investigation of this complaint. This complaint is upheld, as the Council was at fault. The steps outlined above are a satisfactory remedy to the injustice suffered by Mrs X.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

27. I have not investigated matters that occurred before the Council served the Community Protection Notice in April 2020. Mrs X complained to the Council in March 2021 so I consider it reasonable to go back around 12 months before then and April 2020 seems to me to be the best point for us to start from. I do consider that it would have been reasonable for Mrs X to complain about events in 2017-2019 at the time. Events before April 2020 are a late complaint and I have seen no good reason to accept it for investigation now.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman