Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council not taking into account diary evidence when investigating her reports of noise from nearby business premises. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s investigation and decision-making processes to warrant us investigating.

The complaint

1. Mrs X lives in a property near business premises with equipment that uses fans. She complains the Council has failed to take into account evidence of noise from the premises, which she sent to them last year, when deciding not to take enforcement action.

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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)
3. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information from Mrs X, relevant online maps and images, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. We are 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 has followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, even if someone disagrees with it.
6. Mrs X says she submitted a noise diary to the Council for two days in late 2024. She says the Council did not take this information into account. The Council’s response is from early 2025 so it is more likely than not that officers took account of her diary information. But in any event, councils cannot enforce against noise solely using a noise diary. Officers may use them to identify a noise’s timing, type, duration and reported level. But to consider further action, officers need to have other evidence from witnessing the noise or gathering calibrated noise recordings. The Council’s response shows officers took these further steps to try to collect the evidence they would need to support enforcement. Officers made six visits to Mrs X’s home and installed sound recording equipment there. They could not hear the noise Mrs X described when they visited and the sound recorder did not pick up those reported noises either. Officers also went to the business premises and found the type of noise made by their equipment did not tally with any audible sound in Mrs X’s home. Based on their investigations, officers concluded they had not identified a statutory noise nuisance to Mrs X’s property from the businesses which gave them grounds to take any enforcement action.
7. Officers followed their investigative process and gathered relevant information to reach their decision not to take further action. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s processes here to warrant an investigation. We recognise Mrs X disagrees with the Council’s decision. But it is not fault for a council to properly make a decision with which someone does not agree.
8. The Council has advised Mrs X to report to them again if she considers there is a significant increase in noise in future. It will be for officers to decide what action, if any, they should take in response to those future reports.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s investigation and decision-making processes to justify us investigating.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman