This fact sheet is aimed primarily at people who have concerns that the council is not taking action about a nuisance they are experiencing and may be considering making a complaint to the Ombudsman.

We hold councils to account for services they pay other organisations, including private companies, to carry out on their behalf. This means we can still investigate complaints about those services.

I am suffering from a nearby nuisance and I am unhappy that the council has done nothing about this. Can the Ombudsman help me?

Yes, in some circumstances. We cannot overrule the council’s decision on whether or not to take action, as it isn’t our role to say whether the nuisance that you are complaining about is a nuisance in law or whether action must be taken to reduce it. But, if you believe that the council did something wrong in the way it investigated your complaints about the nuisance, and that it caused you problems, then we can investigate your complaint.

If you are suffering from a nuisance, you need to let the council know as soon as possible, giving details of the nuisance and the dates and times that it occurred. The council cannot immediately intervene to stop the nuisance, as it needs to investigate to establish the nature of the problem. It may give you diary sheets to record details of the problem. If it finds there is a statutory nuisance the council must serve an abatement notice. This tells the perpetrator what steps they must take to stop the nuisance. A statutory nuisance is where it is severe enough that the law says the council should intervene.

How do I complain?

You should normally complain to the council first. The council’s policy should say how long it will take to respond. Our Complaint Handling Code says councils should have no more than two stages in a complaint process. The longest a complaint should take is 16 weeks.

The council should provide you with updates on your complaint, including when it may take longer to respond.

If your complaint is not making progress, you can follow our Top tips for making a complaint  to find out what is happening.

If you complained more than 16 weeks ago, and you have not received a final response, we may be able to make enquiries about what is happening to your complaint. You should have tried to check up with the council what is happening before contacting us about delay.

If the council has sent you a final response (usually saying something like ‘this is our final response’) and you are unhappy with the outcome, you can complain to us.

You should normally make your complaint to us within 12 months of realising the council has done something wrong.

If you can consider my complaint what will the Ombudsman look for?

Councils have a duty to take “reasonably practicable steps” to investigate complaints of various nuisances, that are prejudicial to health or that cause a nuisance. A nuisance can be caused by noise, smoke, fumes, or artificial light from any premises. It can also be caused by dust, steam, smells, or insects from industrial, trade or business sites.

We look at whether the council has done something wrong in the way it has investigated the nuisance and, if so, whether the council’s failings impacted on you. For example, is the fault likely to have made a difference to the problems you experienced?

Some faults we might find are that the council:

• did not investigate the complaint properly and establish whether there was a problem from the nuisance, or established there was a significant problem but failed to do anything about it;
• took too long to investigate the problem, or failed to take enforcement action when informal attempts to resolve the problem failed;
• did not take into account the relevant law, policy, or guidance;
• did not explain the outcome of its investigation to you; or
• made a decision based on inaccurate, incomplete, or irrelevant evidence or failed to consider evidence that was available.

What happens if the Ombudsman finds that the council was at fault?

It depends on the fault and how this affected you. We cannot force the council to take action to stop a nuisance. But if we find that you are suffering from it because of the council’s fault we may ask the council to take steps to address the problem.

If the council has established that there is a statutory nuisance but has not taken action, we may recommend that it consider issuing an abatement notice, to require the person to stop the nuisance.

If the council has not investigated the problem properly or has failed to consider evidence that it should have, we may suggest that the council investigates the nuisance again. This can include it reconsidering the evidence or gathering new evidence.

In some cases we may ask the council to pay you a financial remedy, such as where it is not possible to reduce the harm caused or the nuisance has now stopped, but we find that you suffered from it for longer than necessary; or if you took a lot of time and trouble in pursuing your complaint or incurred unnecessary expense.

Where we find fault with the council’s procedures, we will often recommend that the council introduces changes, so that the same problem does not occur again in the future.

Examples of some complaints we have considered

Other sources of information

• If you wish, you can consider taking your own action about the nuisance by complaining directly to the magistrates’ court, under Section 82 of the Environmental Protection Act. But before doing so we suggest that you check the following information sources and take some legal advice.
• You will find government guidance on different types of nuisance at Noise nuisances: how councils deal with complaints - GOV.UK , Nuisance smells: how councils deal with complaints - GOV.UK , and Nuisance smoke: how councils deal with complaints - GOV.UK

November 2025