Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about noise nuisance because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to justify our involvement. We also cannot achieve the outcome Mr X wants.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council has failed to properly deal with his complaints about noise and nuisance from his neighbour. He first raised concerns in March 2024 and continued to report these issues to the Council. He says he has experienced delayed responses and a lack of effective action. He wants the Council to reimburse the cost of soundproofing his party wall shared with the neighbour as it has failed to act.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. 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
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), section 34(B))

4. 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

5. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. We expect people to complain to us within 12 months of the events they are complaining about. Mr X made his complaint about the Council to us on 28 April 2026, which means we can only look at the Council’s handling 12 months prior to this date. This means anything that happened before then is now too late for us to consider. There appears to be no good reason to disapply this rule in this case.
7. The Environmental Protection Act 1990 states that smoke, gases/fumes, dust, steam, odour, deposits or noise emitted from premises, including land, can be a statutory nuisance. If someone living in a council’s area complains about a statutory nuisance, the council must ‘take such steps as are reasonably practicable to investigate the complaint’.
8. 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 premises; and/or,
• injure health or be likely to injure health.

9. There is no fixed point at which something becomes a statutory nuisance. Councils will rely on suitably qualified officers (generally an environmental health officer, or EHO) to gather evidence. They may, for example, ask the complainant to complete diary sheets, fit noise-monitoring equipment, or undertake site visits. Councils will sometimes offer an ‘out-of-hours’ service for people to contact, if a nuisance occurs outside normal working time.
10. Once the evidence-gathering process is complete, the environmental health officer(s) will assess the evidence. They will consider factors such as the timing, duration, and intensity of the alleged nuisance. The officer(s) will use their professional judgement to decide whether a statutory nuisance exists.
11. The Council has explained to Mr X that it asked him to complete noise log sheets when it received his noise complaint in early March 2025. It explained it could not proceed with investigating a noise complete without completed log sheets. The Council closed its case for Mr X’s complaint because it did not receive any completed log sheets from it.
12. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to justify us investigating this complaint further. The Council made it clear what it needed from Mr X to progress his noise complaint. In the absence of this information, we cannot criticise the Council for not taking further action as this is in line with its procedure.
13. Mr X has since asked the Council to reimburse the costs of him soundproofing the wall he shares with the neighbour. The Council has explained it would not be within its remit to reimburse such costs in these cases as this power rests with the court. We will not investigate this matter further because like the Council, we cannot achieve the outcome Mr X wants.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault and we cannot achieve the outcome he wants.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman