The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of Mr X’s reports of noise.
This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council and we c ould not achieve anything more for Mr X.
The complaint
Mr X complains the Council failed to properly investigate his reports of noise from a business near his home. He says the Council wrongly decided there was no statutory nuisance.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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 could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
We are 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, even though a complainant may disagree with it.
Mr X lives in a flat. He reported noise to the Council in June 2024 and contacted it again in November 2024. He says the Council failed to acknowledge the evidence he gathered about the noise over a 12-month period, relied on two visits and did not carry out further investigations as promised.
The evidence shows Council officers visited Mr X’s property in November 2024, but could not identify the noise. In May 2025, officers visited again and carried out testing at the suspected source and Mr X’s home. They found the sound levels at Mr X’s home were typical of background noise and said there was no statutory nuisance. The Council provided a technical report summarising its findings, but Mr X does not agree with it. The report identified several other sources of noise which are potentially louder and closer to Mr X’s home, including commercial air extraction units, road traffic, and frequent rail and bus movements at bus and rail stations between his home and the premises Mr X believes responsible for noise he hears.
The Council has explained the actions it took and the reasons it decided to close the case. There is insufficient evidence of fault in how the Council reached its decision, which was clearly based on robust evidence.
I appreciate Mr X disagrees with the Council’s technical report and believes it should have done more. However, Mr X’s notes of his observations do not amount to evidence of fault by the Council, and we have no power to overturn its decision or require it to take enforcement action. We could not achieve anything more for Mr X.
I recognise there was some delay by the Council and that it initially offered further investigations, but this has not affected the result.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council and we could not achieve anything more for Mr X.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman