Environmental Protection Service Standards Information

Environmental Protection from 1st April 2009 to 31st March 2010

Environmental Protection Service provides a variety of services to a variety of customers. The work undertaken by the team varies from investigating complaints to commenting on planning applications. Some of the work undertaken by the team is detailed below:

  • We investigated a total of 2,114 complaints ranging from loud music to blocked drains.
  • We were consulted and provided responses to 342 Planning and Licensing Applications
  • We undertook 27 inspections of permitted processes and caravan sites
  • We took 201 water samples
  • Maintained our 2 continuous air quality monitoring sites and our 18 passive air quality locations.

Members of the public contact this team in order to request assistance for resolving a variety of issues, which may include loud music from a neighbouring property or an industrial premises burning waste. It is our role to investigate these complaints on behalf of the customer and to apply the legislation as appropriate. We can only assist the customers with issues that are categorised under appropriate legislation that is enforced by this Service area.

The different variety of complaints received by Environmental Protection are shown in the below chart:

  Noise Refuse Drainage Smoke Odour Other
Nuisances
Number of Complaints 713 286 206 158 70 556

We receive complaints about a variety of issues with Noise being the largest category (713 complaints received) in 2009/2010. The chart below identifies the different categories of noise complaints received by proportion:

  Number of Complaints
Barking Dogs 279
Loud Music 149
DIY 6
Alarms 16
Agricultural 12
Commercial 20
Heavy Industrial 18
Light Industrial 8
Other Neighbour Noise 128
Other Noise 77

How we performed?

We responded to noise complaints on average within 1 day of receiving the complaint. Noise complaints are completed on average within 32 days of receiving a complaint.

We resolve the majority of complaints received informally by providing appropriate advice. However, for some of these we are required to follow our enforcement procedure, the number of enforcement actions taken by this Service in 2009/2010 is detailed below:

  • We served 98 Enforcement Notices
  • We gave 177 Formal Verbal and Written Warnings
  • We undertook 2 prosecutions.

We will continue to undertake effective and appropriate enforcement action when necessary as it is an essential tool in resolving the issues that are brought to our attention.

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