Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to take action over Mr X’s complaint about light pollution from a school sports field. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s failure to prevent light pollution from a nearby school sports field from affecting his home. He says it should reduce the level of the lights and prevent unnecessary light pollution.

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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
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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

3. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

6. Mr X says lighting from a recently completed school sports pitch are causing light pollution in his home. He complained to the Council and it investigated his complaints. The Council says the lighting meets the specification set out in the planning approval and that it cannot take any enforcement over the matter. It involved the Council’s environmental protection officers and they visited the site and Mr X’s home. They concluded that the light output does not constitute a statutory nuisance and it cannot take abatement action under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
7. 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. The task of detecting statutory nuisances is usually delegated to Environmental Health Officers, who are often made aware of statutory nuisances by complaints from residents. They are the recognised experts and their professional judgement is very important – if they consider that a nuisance is being caused a Magistrate will normally accept their view.
8. If the Council had considered the issue to be a statutory nuisance it would be required to serve an abatement notice. There is no duty to serve a notice if the Council decides there is no statutory nuisance, as in this case. These notices carry a right of appeal to the magistrates court and the party who they are served on can appeal if they believe the notice was unreasonable or incorrectly served.
9. We cannot overrule the Council’s decision on whether or not to take action. It is not our role to say whether the nuisance that someone is complaining about is a nuisance in law or whether action must be taken to reduce it.
10. It is important to understand that the Ombudsman is concerned with process. We are not a court of appeal. When considering complaints, we may not question whether the decision the Council has made is right or wrong or offer any opinion on whether or not we agree with the judgment of the Councils’ officers or members when there is no fault. This means we will not intervene in disagreements about whether there is fault in a decision.
11. In this case Mr X could take his own action against the school under s.82 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 which uses a different test of evidence to that used by local authorities under s.79.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to take action over Mr X’s complaint about light pollution from a school sports field. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman