Summary: Mrs X complains the Council has failed to act on noise nuisance caused by her neighbour. We have found no fault by the Council in deciding that there is no noise nuisance at the premises.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to here as Mrs X, complains that since 2017 her neighbour has deliberately created a noise nuisance, which is damaging her health and that the Council has failed to take appropriate action.

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What I have investigated

2. I have investigated the Council’s response to Mrs X’s complaints of noise nuisance.

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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. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. 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

5. I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council. I also sent Mrs X and the Council my draft statement and considered their comments before making my final decision.

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What I found

Legislation

6. The Environmental Protection Act 1990 places a duty on Councils to take such steps as are reasonably practicable to investigate complaints about noise that could be a statutory nuisance. It is ultimately a matter of professional judgement for the Council officer involved as to whether a noise constitutes a statutory nuisance.

What happened

7. In October 2017 Mrs X’s son complained to the Council about noises he said were coming from Mrs X’s neighbour’s garage. He said the sound was distressing his mother and accused the neighbour of installing a machine to generate the noise. After visiting Mrs X’s premises, the Council concluded there was no evidence of statutory noise nuisance at the property.
8. In November 2019 Mrs X contacted the Council in distress and complained about the same noise. The Council sent her a diary in which to record the sounds she was hearing. Some two weeks later the Council received Mrs X’s diary log. The Council has shared this with me. It records frequent, loud and continuous noises.
9. The Council officer made a further visit to the property and also conducted an inspection, without notice, of Mrs X’s neighbour’s garage. The officer did not consider there to be any noise on either site that could constitute a noise nuisance. There was no obvious machinery in the neighbour’s garage besides a washing machine.
10. In January 2020 the Council officer informed Mrs X he believed she may be suffering from sensitivity to low frequency noise. Mrs X and her son continued to make complaints of noise nuisance.
11. In February 2020 Council officers visited the property and installed a MATRON (noise recording machine) and a sound level meter. Handwritten notes recording both installation and removal visits provided by the Council show that Mrs X and her son said they could hear noise at a time when officers were unable to hear this. Neither the MATRON nor the meter detected sounds that the Council’s officers considered to be a statutory nuisance.
12. The Council wrote to Mrs X in April 2020 summarising its position that no noise that could be considered a statutory nuisance had been detected at her premises and repeating its suggestion that she may be particularly sensitive to low frequency sounds. It cited guidance from the Government and Salford University to support this theory. The Council said this could provide an explanation as to why Mrs X reported hearing a noise while the officer present at the time heard nothing. The Council also explained that the noise could be coming from a source within Mrs X’s own premises or several kilometres away. The Council concluded that it could offer no further assistance but urged Mrs X to accept support from a third-party organisation it had arranged to contact her.
13. In June 2020 Mrs X wrote to the Council again, complaining that the noise was “going on for days and nights without stopping” and that she could hear it even when away from the house, stating that her body had absorbed the noise and that it was in her car. She made several allegations against her immediate neighbour.
14. The Council wrote to Mrs X in August reiterating its position that it had found no evidence of statutory noise nuisance on her premises. It also advised her to seek help from her GP. She then took her complaint to us.
15. Mrs X told me that at least one other person had reported a noise emanating from her immediate neighbour’s garage. She also suggested that other more distant neighbours were being kept awake at night by the noise. I asked the Council if it had received noise complaints about Mrs X’s neighbour from anyone other than Mrs X. It said it had not.

Analysis

16. The Ombudsman cannot question the merits of a decision on whether a noise constitutes a statutory nuisance unless there is evidence of fault in the way it was reached.
17. In this case, the officers considered evidence from visits to the property, readings from a noise recording machine, an inspection of the neighbour’s garage and Mrs X’s own noise log. They reached a professional judgement that there was no noise that amounted to a statutory nuisance. I can see no fault in the way this decision was reached.

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Final decision

18. I have completed my investigation with a finding that the Council is not at fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman