e-petition on Noise Complaints about Venues

[dosxuk]

I can't support the idea of waiving the right of residents to complain about noise after the stunt the venue just round the corner pulled during their Freshers Week this year - deciding to entertain their queue area / smoking area (which is outside on a road with student flats opposite, my apartment is just round the corner) with a DJ playing from the back of a vehicle. I measured over 85dBA at 2am at the end of the road where my place is, so it was hardly a bit of background noise.

 

If these noise waivers were implemented, nobody in my apartment block would be permitted to complain, even though the venue were deliberately making far more noise than any resident would expect or find acceptable.

 

I agree that venues should be protected from complaints about activities they have always conducted, but residents should also be protected from venues who decide to ignore the fact that people live nearby.

[sleah]

There has to be a compromise. Is it not a requirement in the legal pack (or whatever it's called when you buy a house) to declare potential noise? It should be! In a similar way that there's a school nearby and hundreds of kids will pass your gate twice a day.

 

So, a new tenant is then clued-up to a potential problem. They should then find a way to spend time at the desired location during the hours when noise my be an issue to asses the real impact.

At the school where I work, we are lucky that the residents next door (3 sides) have common sense. When they complain about traffic it is only when parents are becoming anti-social with their driving or parking (dangerous too on occasion). The residents then have our full support (to the extent we can which is really just reminding parents not to be ***ts.) as we want to live in harmony with residents. However, if someone complained about the additional amount of traffic at peak times then I expect they would get little sympathy.

 

So in the case of music pollution, if a venue is operating within limits that have been agreed by authorities and previous residents, then new residents can't really complain, only if that changes, such as dosxuk described.

[Simon Lewis]

You have to declare disputes with neighbours in the Seller's Property Information Form. A dispute can be something you have written to a neighbour about or complained to a council. Subsequent legal action could be taken if you do not declare this in the SPIF.

[Brian]

You have to declare disputes with neighbours in the Seller's Property Information Form.

 

 

So, a good move for all venues would be to pick a fight with all their neighbours so that it gets recorded everywhere.

[KevinE]

The e-petition has a air of childishness about it. 'I was here first'. A noisy venue rarely upsets just one person...I suspect the great majority of affected residents just suffer without saying anything. It's hardly a case of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of a few..it may be one pub upsetting a whole housing estate. I'm sure the environmental health have thought it through and are the best people to weigh up the argument on a case-by-case basis.

[musht]

I'm sure the environmental health have thought it through and are the best people to weigh up the argument on a case-by-case basis.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-29030882

[Simon Lewis]

I understand that in some aspects of noise legislation Scotland advocates a criteria of inaudibility?

[kerry davies]

Interpretation is all, Simon. When WHO guidelines say the noise in hospital wards, open parkland and conservation areas is to be "as low as possible" then yes, silence is "as low as possible."

 

As your other posts rightly point out, noise disturbance is subjective and interpretive so there can be no hard and fast rules or definitive solutions. Each case is entirely individual.

 

Work in this game long enough and everyone will get the EHO calling to pass on a PA noise complaint when the generators had yet to arrive on site because some neighbour has seen the tents. Even silence is too loud for some people.

[musht]

Manipulation of planning is the major problem.

 

Driving east out of Edinburgh on A1, look left see the superstructure of an abandoned grandstand.

 

Grandstand was never completed for a never started dog track, planning for houses that surround site was meant for track to provide employment, condition was houses were not to be built until superstructure and drainage were put if for a grandstand, follow the permission to the letter...

 

Edinburgh Odeon fly tower now getting demolished as planning condition of rest of building in entertainment use was satisfied by a half baked two week run 18 months ago in the foyer.

 

Calton Road flats built without specified sound deafening beside entertainment venue, guess whose licence suffers.

 

The best insurance is the dull thud of a brown enevelope of tenners dropping in the right office...

[Simon Lewis]

Kerry,

 

My comments are taken from a discussion that took place many years ago ( 'Inaudibility - A Concept in the Assessment of Noise Nuisance', Shire Hall, Reading, ProcIOA, Vol 11, (1989)), where it seems that since the early 1980s in Scotland inaudibility has been used as a criterion for assessing amplified music from entertainment premises. Under EPA 1990 it is the judgement of the "EHO" as to whether it constitutes a nuisance.

They may indeed use the WHO night time bedroom noise level as a guideline but that is not set in stone...

 

Simon

[Junior8]

We have a venue near here where the license requires the operator to ensure that no noise is audible outside the perimeter of the property. Fine. But when even the average pub band turns up with more gear than the Who used to use for stadium tours and insists on using all of it how the heck can the license condition be enforced. The plain fact is that most acts anywhere these days are too damned loud - simply I am convinced because they can be!

 

 

[Wol]

and then go straight on the offensive about the noise, sometimes not even stopping by the venue to talk to the management about it, just straight on the blower to the council to have a good old whinge.

 

But we all love paying council taxes to pay for the people to deal with these petty complaints right?

 

You'd be amazed at the amount of money local authorities could save if people acted more like human beings and actually talked to one another like civil people, rather than putting in complaints to the council.

[Simon Lewis]

There are, of course, many who complain about noise at the slightest opportunity. Sometimes this is because they don't like the music itself, the clientele it brings, the duration, timing or just because most only get to hear a muffled bass thud rather than the music itself.

Equally though, there are those who don't mind some noise under reasonable circumstances, but can't take repeated late night noise, especially when this breaches any agreements on level, duration or end times.

Polite requests to reduce neighbourhood noise is encouraged by local councils - it's the first piece of advice they give out. However, for many complainants the response is one of stonewalling, rebuttal or even aggression. This typically triggers either anger and aggression in return or fear of the noise maker and even depression. By the time some noise complaints make it to the council, both sides are entrenched and EHOs face violent confrontations.

Councils have a legal duty to follow up noise complaints. They know that they have to balance the right of businesses to make a living and for people to enjoy entertainment with the right of individuals to enjoy peace and quiet -especially during night time periods- for their physical and emotional wellbeing.