Is this a breach of public nuisance laws/noise pollution?

mknr79

Hi all,

first post here. Thought I'd put it to a large audience to see what you think.

I live in a small town in Co. Wexford, New Ross. Every morning around 5am the council workers are on the street making an almighty racket. First out of the trap is the street sweeper but he uses a leaf blower to blow non-existent litter onto the road where he is followed by a vehicle that sucks said 'litter' up and then sprays the place afterwards.

I have no problem keeping the place nice and clean but as I said, we don't have a litter problem mainly due to the fact New Ross is a ghost town unfortunately. The recession in 08 absolutely killed it and there's basically nobody on the streets to litter them!

Secondly, you could walk a full circle of the town in less than ten minutes (it has three main shopping streets and a quayside) yet the aforementioned cleaners are still 'cleaning' the place at up to 9am. That's four hours after they begin. They circle the town dozens upon dozens of times!

Thirdly, an this is where I have a genuine angry grievance, that blasted truck driver has a downright ignorant habit of pulling up on various streets and leaves the engine and cleaning mechanism running whilst he does seemingly nothing in the cabin (smokes a fag, reads a paper????). That is seriously not on in fairness.

We have complained to our town councillor who said he'll raise the issue. I've asked the few neighbours who are left in my street and they are being driven mad by it too.

What do you think. Is this acceptable or a breach of the relevant law at 5am in the morning, every morning?

(new user so I can't post links. Just replace the '**' with 'tt')

h**ps://youtu.be/FmhpiXVOORU

h**ps://youtu.be/s_TuxhCBLvM

nuac

Suggest you write or call to your local council office

Samuel T. Cogley

Just to point out there might be no litter becuase they keep cleaning it up.. just sayin :pac:

Crazyivan 1979

Noise law is a tricky area, there is no law that states a maximum decibel level that cannot breached at your property. The only cases where a decibel level would apply are:

1. An enforcement order from the local authority
2. If there exists a environmental permit issued by the LA
3. if there exists an IPPC/ IED isued by the EPA
4. A court order

the first 3 would not apply to the street sweepers, instead the options available to you are:

1. Make a complant to the LA
2. Make a nuisance noise complaint to the district court

The district court may then make an order in your favour or they may not, often people hire environmental noise consultants to conduct a survey. If such a survey concludes that the nuisance noise is significant and likely adverse may result and the judge rules in your favour, you may still not be awarded costs.

I have appeared in court as such a consultant and seen it happen.

brian_t

Would the first step be for the OP to determine what the actual noise level is.

Crazyivan 1979

knowing what the noise level is may help with a complaint or during a court hearing. But it would have to be presented in context (i.e. what the level is during sweeping and compare it to the usualy background level of the area) , using a type 1 meter, iphone apps won't cut it. but judges wil make whatever ruling they feel like. Ive seen judges make rulings using sound recording on laptops.

markjbloggs

Old thread, but hoping for some advice from it.

In short how do I make a formal complaint regarding ongoing leaf blower noise? A business near my house (approx 200 meters) is being readied for reopening, involving extensive use of leaf blowers, power washers etc. This has been going on for over a week now and is a serious detriment to me working from home. My concentration is disrupted and my productivity has suffered as a result.

I have complained to the owner but the noise continues. It is not a very large business and I suspect they are being taken advantage by a landscaping company, but that is just my suspicion based on how long this is going on.

I am located in South Dublin - who can I contact, without being "not-my-problemed" to some other organization?

Caranica

If it's during business hours it's unlikely you'll get anywhere.

Uncle Pierre

There's a guide here to the noise regulations, and how to make a complaint:
https://dccae.gov.ie/documents/A%20Guide%20to%20the%20Noise%20Regulations.pdf

Basically, complaints should be made to the local authority. You might not get anywhere, particularly since it sounds like these works are only temporary (no matter how annoying they might be), but they're the people to talk to anyway.

rock22

markjbloggs wrote: »

Old thread, but hoping for some advice from it.

... A business near my house (approx 200 meters) is being readied for reopening, involving extensive use of leaf blowers, power washers etc. ....

Irish water have asked that power washers not be used

Crazyivan 1979

markjbloggs wrote: »

Old thread, but hoping for some advice from it.

In short how do I make a formal complaint regarding ongoing leaf blower noise? A business near my house (approx 200 meters) is being readied for reopening, involving extensive use of leaf blowers, power washers etc. This has been going on for over a week now and is a serious detriment to me working from home. My concentration is disrupted and my productivity has suffered as a result.

I have complained to the owner but the noise continues. It is not a very large business and I suspect they are being taken advantage by a landscaping company, but that is just my suspicion based on how long this is going on.

I am located in South Dublin - who can I contact, without being "not-my-problemed" to some other organization?

Contact the environmental section of the council to make a complaint. However dont hold your breath. I am a noise consultant, and am frequently contacted by people asking me to monitor nuisance noise for them as the council have done absolutley nothing. Although you may get lucky.

brian_t

rock22 wrote: »

Irish water have asked that power washers not be used

I thought it was a domestic hosepipe ban and did not apply to businesses.

https://www.water.ie/news/nationwide-water-conserva/Scanned-Document.pdf

hullaballoo

brian_t wrote: »

I thought it was a domestic hosepipe ban and did not apply to businesses.

https://www.water.ie/news/nationwide-water-conserva/Scanned-Document.pdf

Thanks for that link. It's the very definition of nonsensical regulation.

I cannot use a hose to fill the paddling pool. Ok. But I can fill the paddling pool by carrying open containers from the tap to the pool.

Which wastes more water?

Uncle Pierre

It's probably meant to guard against those larger types of pools that Lidl or Aldi had to withdraw from sale when the ban was announced. Those things can hold up to 7,500 litres of water.

So there'd probably be no real issue with somebody filling a few buckets of water to throw into a small inflatable pool for children to splash around in. But there's hardly anybody going to attempt to fill one of those larger ones that way.

Peregrinus

hullaballoo wrote: »

Thanks for that link. It's the very definition of nonsensical regulation.

I cannot use a hose to fill the paddling pool. Ok. But I can fill the paddling pool by carrying open containers from the tap to the pool.

Which wastes more water?

In practice, allowing people to fill the paddling pool by carrying open containers of water wastes less water because few or no people will do it.

The trick with legislation of this kind is not to tackle the behaviour which, in theory, would waste the most water; it's to tackle the behaviour that does, in fact, was the most water. Hosepipe bans are common because people using h hoses do, in fact, use much more water than people attempting a similar task without a hosepipe and because many people, if they can't use a hosepipe, won't attempt the task at all.