Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of a licence renewal application. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council and it is unlikely investigation would not achieve any worthwhile outcome for him.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained to the Council about the noise and other nuisances coming from a neighbouring property which carries out licenced business activities. He complains the Council renewed the neighbour’s license despite him telling them about the issues.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
4. I considered relevant statutory guidance and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The Council is limited in what it can consider when dealing with a licence renewal application. There are no provisions in the statutory guidance to consider the impact of noise or nuisance on neighbouring properties or to use these issues as a reason not to renew a licence. Therefore, we are unlikely to find fault in the Council’s decision to renew the licence, and we cannot say it should instead have refused it.
6. The Environmental Protection Act 1990 places a duty on councils to investigate reports of possible statutory nuisance including noise and, where it finds a statutory nuisance, they must take action to address it.
7. The Council has informed Mr X that it can only investigate Mr X’s concerns if he submits a formal noise nuisance complaint. However, Mr X has chosen to not submit a noise complaint because he believes an investigation by the Council would risk identifying him.
8. It is Mr X’s choice as to whether to proceed with a complaint of noise nuisance; the Council has no control over his decision. We could not find fault with the Council, or recommend it takes action to deal with the alleged nuisance, unless Mr X reports the issue and asks the Council to investigate it.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s handling of the licence renewal application and we cannot achieve anything by investigating its handling of the noise nuisance issue as Mr X has not submitted a formal noise complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman