Would you go straight to planning enforcement?

[LoveGherkins]

Long story short we have a commercial site next to us and the noise lately has become unbearable. We are in contact with local councillor but while waiting for the answer (they got back saying they need to investigate this) I'm thinking to start communication with planning enforcement (the noise is mainly due to activities that are not as per planning application), however, heard stories our council is very loose in that sense

I thought I could alternatively try and speak to the business owners directly. They are privately owned, so don't think there is a legal department in place to handle this. I'm afraid I wouldn't achieve much by doing that they would just brush me away and carry on with the activities.

How would you advise to approach the issue? Sha I just stay put for now and wait for councillor to get back instead? Getting really desperate now.

I've posted on this matter previously. It looks like this is going to be a long term battle trying to improve the situation xx

Go to local authority. Lodge a concern. Repeat

Yep, straight to planning enforcement if activities are in contravention of their planning permission for the site.

IIRC Noise nuisance comes under Environmental Health (council dept). I'd start there and if the council drags its feet, escalate to MP. Plus contact local paper and get them to run a report on the problem.

What do you mean by commercial site?

What is the industry? Is it a factory or something? What's the noise that's affecting you?

I would add, record the noise and any visual evidence of who's making it .

Not sure what the actual problem is OP - noise? pollution? health and hygiene? ........

IME you have to follow proper procedures before the council will even consider taking action .....
Planning Enforcment ask you to complete nuisance sheets for 3 weeks to log the complaint and the effect it's having on you.
Environmental Protection (who deal with noise/nuisance complaints) ask for complaint sheets for 2 weeks to assess the effect the nuisance is having.

And then they often come back and say there isn't enough evidence to pursue a statutory noise complaint.......... our local council are also very loose in their interpretation of planning regulations.
We're 2 years into battling noise complaints with our local council, even after involving local councillors and the local MP .
Keep on with reports tho!
Involve the council head of Regulatory Services/ Head of Environmental Protection

Be proactive in stating what you want. And don't give up !

Also yes, do speak with the owners of the business and log their responses for complaint sheets as this is useful to show if they're willing to listen to your problem and do something about it.

I wish you the best of luck - it's shit living near commercal businesses who just don't care about the effect they're having on neighbours

I've just read your previous posts about the nature of the business

• so also report it to the council on grounds of noise duing anti-social hours ( have a look at the .gov website ) And do you have any neighbours who are also affected who are willing to put in complaints too? Alternatively, another route would be to take out a private nuisance action against the business (google' private nuisance') I really feel for you and wish you the very best of luck OP!! xx

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4609185-builders-merchant-next-door-desperate-for-advice

So it's a builders merchants.

What happened to the plan of action you had last week?

Am I right in thinking you've not even spoken to the business about this yet?

@GetOffTheRoof I did quite few things already and don't want to disclose full details simply due to confidentiality reasons. What I'm not sure is if it's better to wait for councillor investigation or go to planning in parallel.

I'm looking for some help/ advice on the matter in mumsnet community. I'm not here to give full report on actions/emails/calls/videos recorded and photos taken on this.

Regardless, thanks for taking your time to look into this 🌺appreciate any feedback on this xx

All the councillor will do is pass it on to enforcement. Councillors have very rudimentary training in planning matters and rely on their officers for advice. You’ll cut out the middle man this way.

@BobMortimersPocketMeat I suppose what I'm thinking is that councillor will be able to put but more pressure and make sure that we are taken more seriously.

I suppose I can run it in parallel. Everything seems to be taking quite some time with the council so might as well start now.

Additional to all this, is there any evidence that their supplies are used by a large company? Unlikely, but if they are, perhaps let them know that they are using a company breaching planning permission.

They can ask enforcement to give you high priority but in real terms their workload is their workload, and the law is the law, so any pressure is unlikely to make the outcome any different, to be honest.

So logged the case with Planning Enforcement this morning. Just need to wait for response. I also emailed Head of Commercial Environmental Health last week but not too sure if there's anything he can do, is it just going to be the waste of my time if I chase him.

I also contacted highways as reversing large vans block dual carriage way entry/exit and also local road but they said to speak to local equivalent body. Again, not sure how much i would be abke to achieve exhausting this option but I suppose something to keep in mind.

Funnily enough they were fairly behaved today (only started banging/reversing at 6:30 compared to 5:39). Maybe because bank holiday yesterday, people on holidays in general, who knows..