Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s investigation of nuisance and its issue of an abatement notice to Mr X. We will not investigate this complaint because it was reasonable for Mr X to appeal against the notice. If the Council takes court action against him for breach of the notice, we will not be able to investigate a matter which is subject to court proceedings.

The complaint

1. Mr X says the Council has shown favouritism to his neighbours by taking action against him in the form of a community protection notice warning and an abatement notice for noise nuisance. He says he has been in dispute with the neighbours since 2020 and has involved the Council and the police since 2022. The Council has only taken action against him to date even though he says he is the victim of anti-social behaviour and nuisance.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

6. Mr X says he has had problems with his neighbours making bogus complaints about him since 2020. He says he has suffered damage to his car and abuse and that he has been harassed by the Council since 2022 over noise nuisance which he says is not being created by him. The Council served him with a community protection notice warning letter about the issues which the Council said he had been causing. A warning letter has no appeal rights but if the Council has issued a community protection notice he would have been able to challenge this by appealing to the Magistrates Court.
7. We will not consider these matters because they took place more than 12 months before Mr X submitted his complaint to us. The time for receiving complaints is from when someone became aware of the matter they wished to complain about, not when they complained to the Council or it issued its final response. We would expect someone to complain to us within a year, even if they were dissatisfied with the time the complaints procedure was taking.
8. In July 2024 the Council served Mr X with an abatement notice for noise nuisance under the provisions of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. It had previously told Mr X that it was preparing a notice because it had established that building and DIY noise from his property was causing disturbance to neighbours on weekdays and weekends.
9. Mr X says the notice was hand-delivered in an envelope by an office and not sent recorded delivery. This is not unusual practice for the serving of legal notices. Mr X says there was only a single page of the notice in the envelope and he did not find out for some time afterwards that the notice carried details of his right to appeal within 21 days to the Magistrates Court. The Council disputes his claim and says the officer who served the notice says it was complete and could give evidence under oath should the matter result in a court prosecution.
10. We will not investigate this complaint. Where a council has established that a statutory nuisance exists it has a duty to serve an abatement notice. Mr X could have appealed the notice and we cannot say whether or not his appeal rights were notified to him correctly.
11. The Council has more recently told Mr X that he is in breach of the notice and it has sent the matter to its legal time. If this results in a court hearing Mr X could rais e the matter of his appeal rights in his defence. We have no jurisdiction to investigate what happens in a court and are statute-barred from doing so.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s investigation of nuisance and its issue of an abatement notice to Mr X. We will not investigate this complaint because it was reasonable for Mr X to appeal against the notice. If the Council takes court action against him for breach of the notice, we will not be able to investigate a matter which is subject to court proceedings.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman