What To Do If You Receive A Noise Complaint From A Neighbour About Your Workplace

Dealing with environmental noise complaints

Introduction

There is no doubt that the best time to deal with a noise complaint is years before it happens! If you’re reading this, it’s probably too late!

Good Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes should consider the potential for neighbourhood nuisance, including noise. Building strong community relationships and tackling any issues before they become a complaint is always the most effective remedy, but not all companies have such schemes in place and inevitably complaints will arise.

The following is a step-by-step guide to handling noise complaints should they arise.

Step by Step Approach

If you receive a noise complaint directly from a neighbour about your business, here is a step-by-step approach to handle it professionally and effectively:

1- Acknowledge the Complaint

• Respond politely and promptly, whether the complaint is verbal, written, or through authorities. Always back this up in writing and record your actions.
• Let the neighbour know you take the concern seriously.

Example:
“Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I understand how important peace and quiet is in our community and we want to work with our neighbours to resolve such matters as far as possible.”

2- Contact the neighbour and possibly your local Environmental Health Officer

• You may well be able to resolve the issue directly with your neighbour by tackling it head on and by being willing to act. This will be the best outcome you can expect.
• It may seem counter intuitive to contact the authorities, but they would much rather work with you to resolve the issue than fight you legally, so you should consider it. Even if you resolve the issue directly, you are showing a willingness to engage.

3- Consider hiring a professional

• It may be that you can leave this till a lot further down the line, but it may be worth a chat with an acoustic consultant, just so you can call on them when and if needed. If you did not manage to resolve the issue directly with the neighbour, you will probably need help.

4- Assess the Situation

• Identify when and what type of noise is being generated (e.g., machinery, music, delivery trucks).
• Check whether there are any specific local conditions for noise that might go above and beyond the national standards.

5- Review Local Regulations

• If there are special local conditions, do they apply to your business.
• National standards and codes of practice should be followed and may require specialist input from an acoustic consultant.

6- Investigate and Monitor

• Walk around during operating hours to gauge the noise by listening.
• Use a sound level meter if you have one and know how to use it or hire a professional if needed.
• Ask employees for input and monitor the situation over time.

7- Implement Solutions. Depending on the issue, consider:

• Adjusting hours of operation
• Installing soundproofing or barriers
• Relocating noisy equipment
• Reducing volume or frequency of certain activities

8- Communicate Back

• Inform the neighbour of the steps you’re taking.
• Show goodwill by asking if the changes helped or if they have further suggestions.

9- Document Everything

• Keep records of the complaint, your response, any inspections, and corrective actions.
• This protects your business if further disputes arise or if authorities get involved.

10- Prevent Future Issues

• Periodically check in with neighbours.
• Be proactive about noise during events, maintenance, or construction.

Background

Statutory Nuisance

A statutory noise nuisance is a type of noise that is deemed unreasonable and harmful to health or a nuisance to the enjoyment of property, as defined by law. In the UK, statutory noise nuisance is governed primarily by the Environmental Protection Act 1990, specifically Part III.

What is a Statutory Noise Nuisance?

A statutory nuisance is more than just an annoyance—it must significantly and unreasonably interfere with someone’s use or enjoyment of their home or harm their health. For noise to qualify as a statutory nuisance, it must meet certain legal thresholds.

Examples of potential statutory noise nuisances:

• Loud music or parties at unreasonable hours
• Industrial or commercial noise (e.g., machinery, fans)
• Construction noise at night or early morning
• Alarms sounding for long periods
• Animal noise (e.g., constant dog barking)

What Law Governs This?

Environmental Protection Act 1990 (EPA) – Part III
This law gives local authorities the power to investigate and take action against statutory nuisances.

Other relevant regulations may include:

• Noise Act 1996 – addresses night-time noise specifically
• Control of Pollution Act 1974 – relevant for construction and industrial noise
• Licensing Act 2003 – applies to licensed premises such as pubs and clubs

What Makes Noise a Statutory Nuisance?

It depends on:

• Volume – how loud is it?
• Duration – how long does it last?
• Time of day – night-time noise is more likely to be considered a nuisance
• Frequency – how often does it happen?
• Location and context – rural vs. urban settings, industrial vs. residential

Who Decides If It’s a Statutory Nuisance?

• Local council environmental health officers (EHOs) are responsible for investigating complaints.
• They will assess the situation (often by visiting and measuring noise levels) and decide if it legally qualifies as a statutory nuisance.
• If they determine a nuisance exists, they can serve an Abatement Notice requiring the noise to stop or be reduced.

What Happens If You Don’t Comply?

• Failing to comply with an Abatement Notice is a criminal offence.
• You may be fined (up to £20,000 for businesses).
• The council can also seize equipment or take further legal action.

If you’re running a business, it’s wise to conduct a noise risk assessment, especially if your operations include machinery, music, or deliveries. Let me know your business type or location, and I can help you with more tailored advice.

How to Determine if a Noise could be a Nuisance

There are specific standards and codes of practice that allow you to assess the noise you are making to see if it could potentially give rise to complaints. Which one you use normally depends on the activity you are engaged in although it might not always be clear cut.

Mixed Residential and Industrial Areas

In areas where industrial operations are near residential properties, the standard BS 4142 :2014+A1:2019 can be used to indicate if the noise is likely to generate complaints. The methodology is quite technical and fairly involved so you will either need some training or an acoustic consultant to help with this.

Construction Sites

The construction industry has its own standard, BS 5228-1:2009+A1:2014 ‘Code of practice for noise and vibration control on construction and open sites – Noise’, which contains a detailed breakdown of how to assess the noise from a construction site and how to control it. Again, this is a fairly involved process, so will need someone who knows what they are doing.

Entertainment Industry

The Institute of Acoustics (IOA) have published a ‘Code Of Practice On The Control Of Noise From Pubs And Clubs’, which can be found here: https://www.ioa.org.uk/catalogue/article/code-practice-control-noise-pubs-and-clubs. Being an approved code of practice (ACOP), the guidance given is somewhat more straightforward to understand and is full of practical advice on what to do to mitigate the impact of entertainment noise in various situations.

Planning

If you are about to embark on a development or expansion of your premises, then the ProPG Planning guidance from the Institute of Acoustics will tell you all you need to know.

The planning guidance is also sometimes used after the fact if there is a complaint and it can be shown that the planning process was not completed properly.

World Health Organisation (WHO)

The WHO published many documents on factors that can affect the health and wellbeing of populations around the world and noise is no exception. The WHO Guidelines for Community Noise gives noise levels that should be expected in various situations. For example, in a bedroom at night, the document says that noise exceeding 35dB is likely to lead to disturbance and poor health outcomes.

The document is often called upon in noise disputes where the source of noise cannot easily be placed in one of the main categories covered by the standards. Sports and community facilities are a good example of this as they may have a wide variety of noise sources.

Many More…

There are plenty more of these and some of them are quite obscure.

• Calculation of Railway Noise, 1995
• Calculation of Road Traffic Noise, 1988
• Code of Practice for Concert Noise – The Noise Council
• Code of Practice for Water Skiing & Noise – UK Water Skiing Federation
• Code of Practice on Noise from Clay Target Shooting, 2003
• Planning Guidance on Dog Kennels
• Town & Country Planning – Assessment of Environmental Effects

Noise Monitoring

It may be that you never need to measure the noise directly, after all, the most important thing is to settle the complaint amicably if you can. If there is no resolution, then monitoring may become necessary. In any event, after everything is done, you might like to implement a monitoring programme to keep an eye on the levels you are emitting to the environment.

Expert Witness

If there is any chance that the complaint will end up in court, then you are well advised to engage an acoustician to take any measurements and review the case as you may need them as an expert witness to back you up.

On-going Monitoring

While a consultant may use feature packed sound monitoring systems with cloud interfaces and frequency analysis, any on-going monitoring will usually only require a couple of fairly basic metrics, which can be carried out using a simple set-up like the one below, which is a Castle SONIK in an E-Box with battery power and a weatherproofed microphone.

Conclusion

Being proactive and working collaboratively with your neighbours and the local authority can yield solutions to noise complaints and it is better still if you can pre-empt any issues by considering noise as part of your ESG or CSR strategy. Monitoring can also help keep an eye on the noise levels through normal operations.

If complaints should arise, act quickly and decisively communicating with neighbours and possibly the local authority environmental health department, at every turn.

Should things start to turn for the worse, then bring in an acoustics expert to ensure that you don’t end up on the back-foot.