Agenda item

Addressing your noise issues – Charlene Noel Neighbourhood Community Safety Officer

Cllr Stamirowski Introduced Charlene: Charlene Noel knows her field outside and in, she is fantastic officer and is here to talk to us about what Lewisham can and can’t do as an authority around noise nuisance.

Our department used to be called the neighbourhood community safety service now we are the Crime, Enforcement and Regulation Service. The service has meshed as one team with anti-social behaviour, licencing, noise nuisance and trading standards. Anything that comes in around those areas our officers look into, our officers are now extremely busy.
The borough is cut into 4 quadrants, I manage the west side of the borough which covers Catford South, Forest Hill Perry Vale, and Rushey Green. I know Catford south well I grew up here.
I am here to talk to you about noise nuisance and what we do. Historically we had a noise nuisance team however, because of the cuts – the services have all been amalgamated so we now only have a noise nuisance team that is available 9-5. We realise most of the noise nuisance cases coming in at night and that there is an issue there.
How do we manage this? We have to prove as a council that a noise nuisance is classed as a statutory nuisance. Most of the parties that happen tend to be a one offs - so what we would do, is contact the residents and warn them about etiquette and behaviour of future events. If it is ongoing noise then our offers will go out at night and investigate. If it is proven to be ongoing, we will serve the repeat offender with an abatement notice. If they breach that notice, we will take legal action. That abatement notice lasts for a year.
Now, in the summer months, complaints go up as there are more bbq’s, parties, weddings etc.  The noise nuisance team will be working more night shifts through the summer.
The service is constantly under review, we might need to change the service back to having officers working at night full time.
What we have found is that noise nuisance in the borough as a whole has dropped, but this could be because residents are more aware that we don’t have a night service so make fewer complaints about one off situations. Lewisham councils was one of the first to join their services together. Other boroughs are now following us, i.e. Southwark and Greenwich. That is the way we stand at the moment.

Thank you Charlene.

Q.  Apart from parties what are the other major causes of noise that your team will come out for?
A. Mostly mechanical, car alarms house alarms any noise at all, if it constitutes a statutory nuisance under the ‘noise act’ we have to go out and investigate.
Q. The major problem of noise we suffer from are car alarms, they are from bus drivers who park on our road, calendar road. It doesn’t happen all the time but somethings it happens at night which is disturbing. The drivers who arrive at 4 to start a shift and leave their radios on and so on.
A. That’s something we can definitely help with. If you get in touch with me, I will leave some of my cards at the front, need to work alongside the bus company, which we will do
Q. Section 82 of the noise act states that you have to collect evidence, even if it’s a one off - if there is no one there to collect evidence, how will you be able to serve a noise abatement notice?
A. If it is a one off we wouldn’t serve a noise abatement notice, as it is a one off…therefor a notice wouldn’t be required. We can go around and warn them that if anything further happens they could be subject to an abatement order.
People are allowed to have one off parties. There needs to be etiquette around having a party, inform their neighbours in good time, finish at a reasonable time. We won’t take someone to court for a one off. If it is something that is going on all the time, then we will go out and witness it.
Q. The problems are at night…if you don’t go out to the first one, how do you know it is going to be sporadic…do we have to wait until they do it a second time. I don’t see how this can be successful when you are not out at night.
A. I am on Charlene’s team, if a noise complaint comes in we write to you and send you a diary, you fill it in, if we see a pattern and I think it warrants a night time visit will let you know that on x night we will be out patrolling  - you will have our mobile numbers so you can contact us and let us know the noise is happening we would come round and hear it for ourselves. That’s the only way we can get evidence that there is continual noise going on.
Q. You just have to be lucky?
A. We patrol by the pattern provided by you in your diary, the most consistent offenders are creating noise every night…more often than not the persistent offenders are creating the noise on the night we are about. I know it’s not a perfect solution but it the only solution we have at the moment

Cllr Stamirowski Statement: As you all know we have had to cut £120 million from our budget. So we are cutting services that we would never had dreamed of. The reason Charlene is here is that this amalgamated team is one way of making a saving, without removing the service entirely. The decision was taken to cut outside hours, 2 years ago, but it is under review again as people are recognising that it isn’t working for everyone. But that is the reason we don’t have an out of hours team at the moment. We fully understand your frustration.

Q. We are lucky on our road we don’t have noise issue. If we respect each other and speak to each other things will be better. It is difficult to get to know your neighbours now but if you are having a party, be considerate.
Q. There used to be a social, unwritten rule that if you were having a one off, you would stop at 12 o’clock is this still the case
A. A reasonable cut off time is actually deemed 11oclock
Q. We live in a house divided into flats, basically had no problems until a new resident came in, there is now so much noise. Hellish for the people that live in then. Please stop turning houses into flats.
A. Charlene said to Speak to me in the break.
A. Member of the Corbett RA stated that Corbett estate has a neighbourhood forum and stopping houses turning into flats is one things we are trying to achieve through this. If you want to get to know your neighbours better, organise a street party or a play outside day. The Corbett RA can help you.
Charlene will leave her cards and stay in the break to chat to anyone who wants to talk 1-2-1.