Noise nuisance

Noise must generally be consistent, excessive and/or unreasonable to be considered a statutory nuisance.

There is no legal cut off time for noise levels and what is unreasonable to one person, may not be to another.

Therefore, noise nuisance must be witnessed by a qualified officer from the council, possibly on several occasions. They may use surveillance equipment and will ask you to keep a diary of incidents.

We encourage you to speak to those making the noise in the first instance, if you feel safe and comfortable to do so, as they may not realise that distress is being caused.

Investigating complaints of noise nuisance

We will investigate complaints about a variety of noise that is regular, excessive, or at unreasonable times of the day.

There are some things we generally can’t help with, such as:

  • Noise from children playing
  • One off parties
  • Normal household noise during the day
  • Railway, aircraft and highway noise
  • Domestic disputes (please call the police)
  • Housing association properties – please contact your landlord

Action that can be taken against noise nuisance

Extreme noise nuisance can be dealt with under the:

Tamworth Borough Council always strives to resolve noise complaints informally, but when formal intervention is required, this can result in the issuing of an ‘Abatement Notice’ requiring the nuisance to stop. Failure to comply with such a notice can result in seizure of equipment, a fine and prosecution.

If the noise nuisance is a consequence of anti-social behaviour, the environmental health team may engage other authorities with the view to issuing a Community Protection Warning. Failure to comply with the warning could result in a Community Protection Notice and ultimately a fixed penalty notice and/or prosecution and a Criminal Behaviour Order.

How we handle your noise complaint

To give you an efficient and effective service, the following procedure is applied to all new complaints.

  1. Receive complaint
    To log your complaint, we need your name, address and phone number (for our use only), the address where the noise is coming from and a brief description of the problem.
  2. Initial Letter Stage
    You will be sent a nuisance diary as quickly as possible in which to record details of further incidents. We will also send a letter to the address where the alleged nuisance is occurring.
  3. Noise diary review
    Please fill out your diary over a 10-day period and return it to us. Once we have received and reviewed your diary, one of our officers will decide whether to pursue or close your complaint.
  4. Noise monitoring
    If the complaint is pursued, an officer will contact you to discuss collecting evidence via a noise monitor installed in your home, or an app used on smartphones. An officer may also attend to witness the nuisance in person.  
  5. Escalation
    Should the investigating officer decide the noise amounts to a statutory nuisance, they will seek the appropriate course of action through an Abatement Notice or Community Protection Notice.
  6. Further Complaint and Prosecution
    The noise will be monitored and if it continues to cause a statutory nuisance, this could result in prosecution and/or fines via the Magistrates’ Court.
  7. Taking private action
    You can apply directly to a Magistrates’ Court to make an order for abatement or prevention under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. You might choose this route if it’s not possible for us to witness or monitor the nuisance, or if you don’t want the council to be involved.

Report noise nuisance online.

Busking

Any complaints about noise from buskers will be dealt with in accordance with our busking policy.

Control Of Pollution Act 1974 - Section 61 Prior Consent

The Control of Pollution Act 1974 enables persons/companies to apply to the local authority for prior consent to carry out works that may produce noise or vibration. These include construction, demolition, roadworks, railway maintenance, etc, and is called a Section 61 Prior Consent.

The application must contain particulars of (a) the works to be carried out and (b) the steps proposed to be taken to minimise noise resulting from the works. The prior consent application must be provided to the Environmental Health Team at least 28 days before any works commence.

The consent (if given) may include specific and often detail bespoke conditions. Please contact us to request the application form.