Environmental health - out of hours emergency (noise)
Southampton City Council operates a service to deal with noise problems out of office hours.
Contact Details:
Telephone: 023 8023 3344
Details of service:
Southampton City Council operates a service to deal with noise problems out of office hours. Officers are on duty to respond to complaints from members of the public who are experiencing noise nuisance. The primary aim is to address persistent noise problems rather than one-off situations like parties, so priority is given to callers who have already registered their complaint with us. However we can deal with one-off parties in some circumstances.
If your neighbours are often noisy and you would like our assistance we would prefer you to speak to us during office hours first. That gives an opportunity to talk the problems through and for you to understand what we can and cannot do. During the working day please phone the Public Health Team on 023 8083 2531.
There is a common misconception that simply receiving a complaint at night is enough for us to take some sort of action. The Out of Hours officers need to gather evidence to establish that there is a statutory noise nuisance before taking any further action. This involves the officers visiting your home to listen to the noise you are complaining about.This is an objective assessment made by the officers to determine if the noise "materially effects the personal enjoyment and reasonable comfort of your home" Once this assessment has been made we will talk to you about what action, if any, we can take.
Noise Nuisance legislation enables us to deal with:
- noise from premises (homes, pubs, clubs, shops etc);
- burglar alarms;
- car alarms;
- some types of construction noise.
legislation has recently been passed which allows us to deal with light nuisance from domestic premises. Please contact the Public Health Service during the day for further details.
The law does not allow us to deal with:
- road and rail traffic noise;
- noisy aircraft;
- people shouting in the street;
- normal domestic noise;
- fireworks.
The Out of Hours Noise Service can be contacted by calling 023 8023 3344. An operator will take your details to pass to the duty officers who aim to call you back within 30 minutes when on duty.
Last updated: 29 June 2007
