Noise and nuisance complaints

Find out how to complain about noise, air and light pollution, and other nuisance issues.

Complaints we deal with

You can report the following issues to the council:

• noisy neighbours, including barking dogs and alarms
• noise from commercial or industrial premises, and ice cream vans
• smoke, fumes and gases
• smells, insects, dust or steam coming from industrial, trade or business premises
• light issues - such as badly adjusted security lights or floodlights
• accumulation of rotting food or other material which creates a health risk

Complaints we do not deal with

We cannot accept reports for the following issues:

• aircraft noise
• odour from domestic kitchens
• road traffic noise, including music from car stereos
• neighbours arguing
• children playing
• noise from a one-off party
• issues that only affect you outside of your property, for instance, while you are out walking

Before you make a complaint

If it's safe to do so, you should first try to resolve the problem by talking to whoever is responsible for the issue before going down the formal complaint route. The Problem Neighbours website has some useful advice on how to do this.

How to make a complaint

Please note you will need to create an account.

Once you have logged in you will need to use the 'Request' option to submit your complaint.

Please then pick: 'Environmental health - noise or other nuisance complaint' as your request type, unless you are complaining about noise from a house in multiple occupation (HMO) when you will need to pick: 'Housing - report a noise problem with an HMO'. 

Report a noise or nuisance complaint online

Read our privacy notice which tells you how we use your data.

What happens after I make a complaint?

We will normally send you a log sheet to record details of the noise with dates and times. This helps us to investigate your complaint. You must return the log sheet within six weeks of the complaint or we will not proceed any further.

We will also write to the person or organisation you are complaining about to tell them a complaint has been made.

If the noise or nuisance continues after they have received the letter, an council officer will assess the log and decide whether to continue the investigation. If there is evidence that a statutory nuisance exists, we will serve a notice for the noise or nuisance to stop or be reduced.

There may be occasions when we cannot obtain the evidence necessary to take further action. In such cases, you may wish to consider taking your own legal action.