Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s investigation of a noise nuisance matter. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision to justify our investigation.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained the Council did not consider her noise nuisance complaint properly, and about its decision that the matter was not a statutory noise.
2. Miss X said this caused distress.
3. Miss X wants the Council to reinvestigate her noise nuisance complaint, apologise and review its processes.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

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

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by Miss X.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Miss X said the Council has failed to identify noise nuisance coming from a neighbouring domestic property.
8. The Council reviewed Miss X’s noise logs and visited the site on two occasions before deciding any noise was not sufficient to be confirmed as statutory noise.
9. The Environmental Protection Act 1990 places a duty on councils to investigate reports of nuisance and to take reasonable steps to investigate any complaints of statutory nuisance that it receives. Only a qualified Environmental Health Officer can decide if there is a statutory nuisance based on the evidence available. There is no duty to serve an abatement notice if the Council decides there is no statutory nuisance present.
10. Abatement notices carry a right of appeal to the magistrates court and the resident can appeal if they believe the notice was unreasonable or incorrectly served. This means the Council would have to have a case which could be reasonably defended at appeal and if there is not sufficient evidence it should not serve a notice.
11. 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 someone is complaining about is a nuisance in law or whether action must be taken to reduce it.
12. 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.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision to justify an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman