Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to take action against a neighbour’s intrusive outside lighting. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained about the Council’s refusal to serve an abatement notice against her neighbours for displaying flashing lights on their property which she says affect her medical condition.

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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 consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

5. Ms X says her neighbours installed lights on their fence which causes a flashing/strobing effect and this affects her medical condition. She says that she is unable to use some of her rooms at night as a result. She reported the matter to the Council and it investigated under the provisions of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
6. Councils have a duty to carry out investigations but they can only issue an abatement notice if a statutory nuisance is identified. The Council’s officers concluded that the lighting did not constitute a statutory nuisance.
7. Ms X says the lights affect her medical condition but the law says that the council should not take into account any specific attributes of the person complaining about the nuisance. Statutory nuisance must be considered in the context of an average person, in a reasonable state of good health and having a normal pattern of everyday activity. Statutory nuisance cannot be used to make people do more than might reasonably be expected of them because someone else may be more sensitive. The Council told her that it could not say the lights were a nuisance and that it could not defend an appeal against any notice which it might have served.
8. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether someone disagrees with the decision the organisation made.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to take action against a neighbour’s intrusive outside lighting. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman