East Suffolk Council (25 008 397)
Category : Environment and regulation > Antisocial behaviour
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 14 Nov 2025
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about how the Council handled complaints about her made by her neighbour. This is because any injustice is not significant enough to justify an investigation.
The complaint
- Mrs X complains the Council investigated a noise complaint made by her neighbour. This is because it said it would not be investigating further complaints given the number of unfounded complaints it had received. She says the further investigation caused distress.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We investigate 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 continue an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- The Council wrote to Mrs X and her neighbour about their continuing neighbour dispute and said it would not investigate any further complaints. Six months later, it contacted them both and said it was considering whether to investigate a noise complaint Mrs X’s neighbour made.
- The Council has a legal duty to investigate a complaint of statutory noise nuisance. It explained to Mrs X it considered the allegations were frequent enough and sufficient to inform the decision to make initial enquiries to
establish if a statutory noise nuisance was occurring. It said Mrs X’s neighbour had withdrawn the complaint and it did not investigate further.
- Given the Council’s legal duties it should not have any blanket policy not to investigate. However, I consider any fault in its communications on this did not cause significant injustice. This is because the Council had a duty to investigate in any case. And Mrs X would have suffered distress even if the Council was clear on its legal duties at the outset.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because any injustice is not significant enough to justify an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman