Noise complaints

• What we can and can't investigate
• Noise at night
• How we deal with noise complaints
• Make a noise complaint
• Taking legal action in a noise dispute

It can be distressing when noise disturbs your peace and the enjoyment of your home. 

Often, your neighbour or local business isn’t aware they’re disturbing you. There are steps you can take to let them know and resolve the issue. 

If the noise disturbance continues, you can report it to us.

See further help on dealing with noise issues from ASB Help (external link). 

What we can and can’t investigate 

Statutory nuisance 

We can only investigate noise nuisances that are statutory. 

For an issue to be statutory, it must do one of the following: 

• be unreasonable and greatly interfere with the use or enjoyment of a home or other premises 
• injure health or be likely to injure health 

Our officers decide if a noise complaint meets the statutory nuisance criteria. Their decision is based on what the average reasonable person would find acceptable.  

What we can’t investigate 

We can’t investigate the following: 

• babies crying or young children playing    
• one-off parties or BBQs    
• noise from reasonable DIY and other daily activities like doors closing, toilets flushing and walking across floors or up and down stairs  
• noise from household appliances like washing machines or hoovers, unless at antisocial hours  
• shouting, raised voices, arguments, laughing – you may need to report anti-social behaviour (ASB)
• people talking in gardens  
• doors slamming 
• furniture moving 
• intermittent banging etc 
• aircraft and railway noise 

What we can investigate 

We can investigate loud noise that happens often, like: 

• loud music or TV 
• constant dog barking or other noisy domestic animals 
• DIY work at unreasonable times 
• construction noise from building sites outside permitted hours which are: 
• Monday to Friday, 8am - 6pm 
• Saturday, 8am – 1pm 
• burglar or car alarms sounding continuously  
• mechanical plant equipment (AC units/extractors/generators)  
• street performers 

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Noise at night  

We have an out of hours noise team. 

They operate from 6pm to 2am on: 

• Thursday 
• Friday 
• Saturday 
• Sunday 

When demand is high we cannot guarantee a visit. 

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How we deal with noise complaints 

Details of how we deal with complaints is on our report antisocial behaviour and noise page.

See also information on GOV.UK on how councils deal with noise complaints (external link). 

Make a noise complaint 

You can report noise online via our dedicated e-form:

Make a noise complaint

Taking legal action in a noise dispute 

You may want to consider taking your own legal action if efforts to resolve the issue aren’t successful. 

Find out how you can take your own legal action against someone causing a noise disturbance (external link). 

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