Part 3 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 requires us to take reasonable steps to investigate and, if appropriate, to take formal action in the event of justified complaints of statutory nuisance.

A Statutory Nuisance in this context can include emissions of smoke, fumes or gases, dust, steam and smell. The emissions must arise from premises and must materially affect the use of enjoyment or other premises.

Typical of complaints of this type are smoke and ash from garden bonfires, smoking chimneys, dust from building and demolition activity and cooking smells from restaurants. The legislation does not allow us to deal with complaints of smells arising from domestic premises.

What action will we take?

As a first step, we will send you diary sheets so you can record the details of the problem. For example, if your complaint is about noise: the dates, times, how long it lasts, how bad it is, and how the problem is affecting you. These diary sheets can form part of our evidence if we need to take legal action.

After we receive the diary sheets from you, we may arrange for someone to visit you. Our policy is to visit you on 3 occasions, at a time we are likely to witness the problem happening.

If we are satisfied that there is a statutory nuisance we will serve an Abatement Notice on the person causing the problem. If we do not have enough evidence, or if we have not been able to witness the alleged nuisance, or if we do not consider that there is a statutory nuisance then we can take no further action. However, you will normally be able to take private legal action through the Magistrate's Court.

If found guilty of an offence of this type then the maximum fine is £5000 on domestic premises and £20,000 for commercial premises.

Environmental Services are proud to have been granted CharterMark