Summary: There was no fault in the way the Council investigated the complainant’s reports a nearby business was causing a noise nuisance and breaching its licence. The Council carried out a proper investigation and was entitled to decide there was no evidence to support either allegation. We have therefore completed our investigation.

The complaint

1. I will refer to the complainant as Mr B.
2. Mr B complains the Council has not taken enforcement action against a business near his property, which he says represents a breach of planning permission, building regulations, and licensing, as well as causing a statutory noise nuisance. Mr B says this causes him disturbance in his home and affects his quality of life.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and s34H(1), as amended)
4. 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)
5. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint unless we are satisfied the organisation knows about the complaint and has had an opportunity to investigate and reply. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(5), section 34(B)6)

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What I have and have not investigated

6. I have investigated the licensing and statutory nuisance elements of Mr B’s complaint.
7. I have not investigated the planning element of Mr B’s complaint. This is because his correspondence with the Council makes clear he was aware of the alleged breach of planning by 2023 at the latest, which was more than 12 months before he made his complaint to us. This complaint is therefore late, and as there is no reason to believe it was not reasonable for Mr B to have approached us with it sooner, I have not exercised discretion to accept it out of time.
8. I have also not investigated the building regulations element of Mr B’s complaint. This is because it did not form part of his formal complaint to the Council, and is therefore premature for investigation by the Ombudsman. I will add that, even if this were not the case, it is unlikely we would accept it for investigation, because there is no evidence of any potential injustice to Mr B arising from this matter.

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How I considered this complaint

9. I considered evidence provided by Mr B and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
10. I also shared a draft copy of this decision with each party for their comments.

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What I found

Mr B’s complaint

11. A short distance from Mr B’s property is a commercial building which provides a range of services, including hospitality. Over a period of several years Mr B has made complaints to the Council about the business, focussed primarily on his allegation it creates a noise nuisance affecting his property.
12. For the sake of simplicity, the following will summarise the complaint exchange the Council had with Mr B about the noise and licensing issues. Mr B made a separate complaint to the Council about the planning issues, which I will not summarise because it is not covered by my investigation.
13. In May 2025 Mr B submitted a formal stage 1 complaint to the Council, to which it responded in June.
14. The Council noted it had first received a noise complaint from Mr B in 2023, with further complaints in 2024 and 2025. As part of its investigation, the Council had installed noise monitoring equipment in Mr B’s property in February 2024, and carried out two other visits to his property and to the business. The Council said it had decided to take no further action at that time, but acknowledged it had not explained this to Mr B and apologised.
15. The Council said it had allocated Mr B’s case to a new officer in August 2024, who, in September, had offered to install noise monitoring equipment at Mr B’s property again. The Council noted Mr B had refused this, and also refused to permit officers access to his property. The officer had then carried out two joint visits to Mr B’s property with an officer from the Council’s licensing team, remaining outside and measuring the noise level from there. The Council explained these visits had not provided evidence of significant noise coming from the business.
16. The Council said its environmental health and licensing departments had also held a joint meeting with the business in October. The meeting did not provide evidence the business was acting in breach of its licence. The business had explained the measures it had taken, or was in the process of taking, to reduce the noise it was creating. The business agreed several additional measures after a second meeting in November, and, following this, the Council said it received no more noise complaints about the business until March 2025.
17. The Council explained that, to investigate whether the business was creating a statutory nuisance, officers needed to witness the noise from inside a habitable room in Mr B’s property, either in person or by using recording equipment. It said it could not rely on the previous recordings due to their age, and that videos Mr B had submitted were not adequate for use in its investigation.
18. The Council noted Mr B had submitted four videos showing hospitality at the business premises. Of these, two were timestamped, showing Mr B had taken them during the business’s licensed hours, and were therefore not evidence of a breach. Mr B had emailed the other two videos to the Council outside the licensed hours, implying the business was in breach, but the Council noted these videos did not have a timestamp, and so it could not be shown when Mr B had recorded them. The business had also provided evidence to show it was closed at the time of another reported incident.
19. The Council said the mitigation measures the business had agreed were voluntary, and did not form part of its enforceable licence conditions. It explained the circumstances under which a review of the business’s licence could be called, but said it was satisfied it did not have grounds to do so.
20. The Council reiterated it had found no evidence of a statutory nuisance. It explained Mr B’s rights to take private action against the business under section 82 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
21. Mr B then raised a stage 2 complaint over a series of emails with the Council. The Council provided a single collated response in August.
22. The Council reiterated it could not continue to investigate whether the business was creating a statutory nuisance if Mr B did not permit officers to access his property. It acknowledged, as Mr B had pointed out, that the legislation did not require officers to enter property in order to act; but explained the definition of a statutory nuisance is that it interferes with a person’s enjoyment of their home, and could therefore not be assessed from outside. It also explained it could not call a licensing review without adequate supporting evidence.
23. The Council assured Mr B it had not simply accepted the business’s claims, and said it had reviewed CCTV which showed the business was closed at a time when one allegation was received. It explained it had then transpired the noise in this case had come from a different location.
24. The Council explained again the measures the business had taken to manage and reduce the impact of its noise. However, it again highlighted that these were voluntary measures it could not enforce. The Council noted Mr B had also made a complaint about the way certain councillors had responded to him, but said these had been dealt with appropriately by the Council’s monitoring officer, against whose decision there was no right of appeal.
25. However, the Council offered Mr B £150 to reflect the fault identified in its earlier response, in failing to inform him of the outcome of its investigation in 2024.

Legislative background

Statutory nuisances

26. Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (EPA), councils have a duty to take reasonable steps to investigate potential ‘statutory nuisances’.
27. Activities a council might decide are a statutory nuisance include:

• noise from premises or vehicles, equipment or machinery in the street;
• smoke from premises;
• smells and fumes from industry, trade or business premises;
• artificial light from premises;
• insect infestations from industrial, trade or business premises; and
• accumulation of deposits on premises.

28. For the issue to count as a statutory nuisance, it must:

• unreasonably and substantially interfere with the use or enjoyment of a home or other property; and/or
• injure health or be likely to injure health.

29. There is no fixed point at which something becomes a statutory nuisance. Councils rely on suitably qualified officers to gather evidence. Officers may, for example, ask the complainant to complete diary sheets, fit noise-monitoring equipment, or make site visits. Councils will sometimes offer an ‘out-of-hours’ service for people to contact, if a nuisance occurs outside normal working time.
30. Once evidence gathering is complete, a council will assess the evidence. It will consider matters such as the timing, duration, and intensity of the alleged nuisance. Officers will use their professional judgement to decide whether a statutory nuisance exists.
31. The law says that a potential nuisance must be judged on how it affects the average person. Councils cannot take action to stop something which is only a nuisance to the complainant because they have special circumstances, such as a medical condition which makes them unusually sensitive to noise or fumes.
32. Councils can also decide to take informal action if the issue complained about is causing a nuisance, but is not a statutory nuisance. They may write to the person causing the nuisance or suggest mediation.

Abatement notices

33. If a council is satisfied a statutory nuisance is happening, has happened or will happen in the future, it must serve an abatement notice. If the nuisance is noise from premises, the council may delay issuing an abatement notice for a short period, to try to address the problem informally.
34. An abatement notice requires the person or people responsible to stop or limit the activity causing the nuisance. Failure to comply with an abatement notice is an offence, which can lead to prosecution and a fine.
35. A person who receives an abatement notice has a right to appeal it in the magistrates’ court. If they can show the court they have done everything reasonable to prevent or minimise the nuisance, the court may decide the abatement notice is not appropriate.

Section 82 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990

36. A member of the public can also take private action against an alleged nuisance in the magistrates’ court. If the court decides they are suffering a statutory nuisance, it can order the person or people responsible to take action to stop or limit it.

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Analysis

37. As I have noted, I have investigated the elements of Mr B’s complaint concerning noise nuisance and licensing. I will address each element in turn.

Noise nuisance

38. The Council has identified fault in its original investigation of a potential statutory nuisance from the business, because it closed the investigation without informing Mr B. This falls outside the period I have investigated though, and so I cannot incorporate this into my own findings.
39. The Council then re-opened the investigation in August 2024. It made visits both to the area of Mr B’s property and the business, took sound level readings, but decided there was no evidence of a statutory nuisance. This was a decision the Council was entitled to make; and, without identifying a statutory nuisance, the Council had no formal legal powers to take action against the business.
40. I am particularly conscious the Council’s took sound level readings from ground level outside Mr B’s property, and not inside the property, which would be normal practice. However, this was because Mr B did not wish for officers to enter the property.
41. It is, of course, Mr B’s prerogative to decide whether to permit officers access to his property, and I acknowledge why this might feel intrusive. But, as the Council has explained, statutory nuisance is defined by its impact on a person’s ability to enjoy their home or other premises. It logically follows, therefore, that a proper assessment of statutory nuisance can only be made inside the premises in question. I share the Council’s view that measurements taken from outside a property have limited evidentiary value, for the purposes of a statutory nuisance investigation.
42. Similarly, the Council has explained why it is unable to rely on recordings made on Mr B’s phone as evidence of a statutory nuisance. Again, it is normal for councils to rely on properly calibrated, professional equipment, in order to make the strongest case possible for taking action.
43. The Ombudsman’s role is to review the way a council has made its decisions. We may criticise a council if, for example, it has not followed an appropriate procedure, not considered relevant information, or unduly delayed making a decision. We call this ‘administrative fault’ and, where we find it, we can consider the impact of the fault and ask the council in question to address this.
44. However, we do not make operational or policy decisions on a council’s behalf, or provide a right of appeal against its decisions. If we find a council has acted without fault, then we cannot criticise it, even if the complainant feels it has made the wrong decision. We do not uphold a complaint simply because a person disagrees with something a council has done.
45. In this case, I am satisfied there is no fault in the way the Council has investigated the potential statutory nuisance. It made the proper efforts to gather evidence, and explained clearly why it is not satisfied the evidence substantiates a nuisance. It also explained to Mr B why it could not continue the investigation if he was unwilling to permit officers access to his property.
46. And, despite being unable to identify a statutory nuisance, the Council continued to work informally with the business, to help manage and limit the noise it was producing. It also signposted Mr B to his rights to take his own action against the business under section 82. This is exactly what we would expect a council to do under these circumstances.
47. None of this is intended to dismiss the fact Mr B is clearly disturbed by the noise from the business. However, the decision whether noise amounts to a statutory nuisance is an objective one, based on a range of factors, and not simply that somebody has made a complaint.
48. I find no fault in this element of Mr B’s complaint.

Licensing

49. The Council investigated the licensing issue alongside the Mr B’s complaints about noise nuisance, but did not find evidence of any breach.
50. In response to my enquiries, the Council has provided a detailed explanation of its investigation, and how it came to its conclusion. This was based on a combination of noise measurements, visits to the business, and reviewing video evidence, both that submitted by Mr B, and some provided by the business from its CCTV system.
51. The Council explained the business’s licence requires it to limit music to ‘background noise' level. It said there is no formal definition of this, but the Council’s view is that this should mean guests can hold conversations over the sound of the music. The Council said it had used the CCTV footage from the business to verify this was the case.
52. I am also particularly conscious of the Council’s comments about the videos Mr B submitted, which could only be taken to show the business was complying with the time restrictions on its licence; and that another incident reported by Mr B had nothing to do with the business, and was actually the noise from an event a different location.
53. The Council’s earlier investigation of the business had led to the production of an action plan, to help reduce the noise it was creating. As part of the new investigation, the Council attended meetings with the business, during which it discussed the implementation of the action plan, and agreed additional measures the business could take. There is no suggestion the Council was dissatisfied with the steps the business had taken though; and, critically, even if it had been, these were voluntary measures which the Council had no power to enforce.
54. The Council also explained clearly to Mr B what evidence it needed to see to justify initiating a review of the business’s licence, and why it did not consider it had grounds to do so.
55. Again, I do not dismiss Mr B’s reasons for being dissatisfied with the Council’s decision. But, equally, I can see no reason to criticise the Council here. It took the proper steps to investigate and came to a conclusion it was entitled to, and there is no evidence of fault in this.
56. I find no fault in this element of Mr B’s complaint.

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Decision

57. I find fault no fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman