Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s investigation of a complaint about noise nuisance. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained about the Council’s failure to properly investigate her complaint about noise from a commercial gym near her home. She says the Council failed to make proper investigations of the noise levels and frequency or to record the noise levels until she complained.

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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)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council’s responses.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Miss X says noise from a gym in the same building as her home has caused disturbance from 2024 when she moved in. she complained to the Council about loud music being played when the gym is open and asked it to take action to moderate the use.
6. The Council says that it visited the premises and Miss X’s property and that later noise recordings led the officers to decide that the noise involved did not constitute a statutory nuisance. Miss X disputes the analysis of the evidence. She says that the Council notified the gym of when it was recording and this altered the outcome.
7. The Council says that it did not notify the business but it had to tell it that there had been a complaint and that monitoring may take place but not when. It also told Miss X that the monitoring did not warrant out of hours visits which are only carried out when an officer believes they are necessary for further information collection.
8. The Ombudsman is 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 followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether someone disagrees with the decision the organisation made.
9. We cannot overrule the Council’s decision on whether or not to take action. It is not our role to say whether the noise that you are complaining about is a nuisance in law or whether action must be taken to reduce it. Only a qualified officer can decide if there is a statutory nuisance. In this case the Council concluded that there was insufficient evidence of a statutory nuisance for it to take formal action.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s investigation of her complaint about noise nuisance. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman