Report a noise nuisance

If noise from a neighbour, business/commercial/industrial property or another location is affecting your day-to-day life, you can report it online.

Before you start, you should make sure you have the details and evidence you’ll need to complete your report.

What you can report

Not all noise problems are a statutory noise nuisance. We can usually investigate noise that happens regularly or for long periods and seriously affects your home life.

Examples include:

• house alarms
• loud music
• shouting or screaming
• persistent dog barking
• noise at anti-social times (between 11pm and 7am)
• noise from businesses or pubs

One-off incidents and normal household noise are less likely to be investigated.

If the problem is on a housing association property, report it to your housing provider first.

Noises we can’t investigate

We're not able to investigate if the noise is:

• from roadworks or construction
• part of an ongoing conflict between neighbours - you may want to report this as anti-social behaviour instead
• from everyday activities at reasonable times (between 7am and 11pm) such as children playing, or appliances like washing machines
• traffic

When to report a problem to the police 

We’re not able to tackle criminal activity. This includes:

• illegal off-road bikes and mini motos
• fireworks being used outside permitted hours (between 11pm and 7am, except on Bonfire Night, New Year's Eve, Diwali or Chinese New Year) or in a dangerous manner
• an alarm going off and you’re concerned about an active crime or someone in danger

To report criminal activity, you can:

• call 999 if someone is in immediate danger or a crime is happening right now
• call 101 if it's not an emergency
• report it to the police online (opens in new tab)
• contact Crimestoppers anonymously (opens in new tab)

Before you begin

If it’s safe to do so, try talking to the person involved to see if you can resolve the problem first.

If you still want to report the noise, you should be ready to provide:

• your contact details
• details about the type of noise it is, where it comes from and how often it happens
• information about any previous reports

You’ll also have the chance to tell us how the noise is affecting you.

If you receive support from a social worker, health visitor or advocate, you can tell us when completing the form so we can provide appropriate support if needed.

How to report noise nuisance

Watch our short video to see how to complete the report form.

You can also:

• go to a Walsall Connected hub, where we'll show you how to use our online forms
• phone the customer experience centre and we will take you through the process

Evidence for your report

To help us investigate your report, you should keep a noise diary covering similar incidents from the last two weeks.

Your diary should record:

• when it happened and how long it lasted
• where the noise came from
• the type of noise
• how it affected you

You can download a noise diary template to use for your evidence

Sharing your evidence

You’ll be able to upload supporting evidence as part of your report, including:

• photos that help identify the location
• your completed noise diary

The more detail and evidence you provide, the easier it will be for us to assess the problem.

Make your report

Protecting your information

Any data collected as part of the application will be used in accordance with data protection law and the UK GDPR. Find out more about how we process your data.

What happens next

If we decide there is a problem

We can serve an abatement notice. This means they must take reasonable steps to reduce the noise.

If they ignore the notice, we can take further legal action. This may result in:

• court cases and criminal prosecution
• significant fines
• seizing the equipment causing the problem

If we decide there is not a problem

Sometimes we'll decide that a noise is not a nuisance. This could be because:

• there’s not enough evidence
• we were unable to witness the noise over a reasonable period of time
• we found it wasn’t unreasonable or persistent

We will then close your case. This doesn't mean the noise isn't a problem, but that we can't resolve it.

Further action you can take

Under Section 82 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (opens in new tab), you can apply to the magistrates’ court yourself for a nuisance order. This can make the person responsible stop the behaviour that’s causing the problem.