Noise nuisance

Noise nuisance

Your questions

Under the Freedom of Information Act and Environmental Information Regulations, please could you provide the following information for the last 10 years for which records are kept; the number of complaints received for indoor air pollution effecting enclosed communal areas and/or habitable areas caused by :

  • any premises in such a state as to be prejudicial to health or a nuisance;
  • smoke emitted from premises so as to be prejudicial to health or a nuisance;
  • fumes or gases emitted from premises so as to be prejudicial to health or a nuisance.

Please see below:

Row Labels

Count of Request Type

RS - Domestic - Air Pollution

124

RS - Domestic - Bonfires, vehicle, etc

673

RS - Domestic - Dust Pollution

68

RS - Domestic - Odours, fumes and gas

286

Grand Total

1151

Row Labels

Count of Request Type

RS - Domestic - Bonfires, vehicle, etc

8

NOTDOM

6

S801

2

RS - Domestic - Odours, fumes and gas

1

NOTDOM

1

Grand total                                            9

For each of the above categories, please provide a breakdown for:

  • no statutory nuisance found
  • nuisance found, formal warning issued
  • noise Abatement Notice issued
  • please provide us with a copy of an abatement notice issued against the resident of Flat 639, Hanover House, 7 St George Wharf, London, SW8 2JA.

Our response

  • I can confirm that we have reviewed your request but consider that to comply with the request would exceed the cost/time limit specified by s12 FOIA.

Section 12 (cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit)

  1. — (1) Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.
  • in this instance, we have decided that the process of determining whether the information is held will exceed the Appropriate Limit as provided by The Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.

The Appropriate Limit applies to costs/time the Council reasonably expects to use in carrying out the following activities to comply with your request:

  • determine whether the information is held
  • locating the information or documents containing the information
  • retrieving such information or documents
  • extracting the information from the document

The Appropriate Limit is currently set at £450 which is the equivalent to 18 hours of work at £25 per hour.

It is estimated that to retrieve the information for this request would take at least 18 hours.

The process of retrieving and collecting the data is therefore likely to exceed the Appropriate Limit.

In accordance with Section 17 FOIA this letter represents a Refusal Notice for this aspect of the request.

Should you wish to redefine or shorten your request then please resubmit another request to us and we will consider if we can respond.

  • 2,216
  • 144
  • I can confirm that we have reviewed your request and we consider disclosure would breach the Data Protection Act 2018 and therefore engage Section 40(2): Personal Data to this request.

The definition of personal data is set out in provision 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 as follows:-

  1. “Personal data” means any information relating to an identified or identifiable living individua
  2. “Identifiable living individual” means a living individual who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to—
    • an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data or an online identifier, or
    • one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of the individual.

We note this request asks for information which would allow an individual(s) to be identified.

We have considered whether it would be fair to disclose the information including whether disclosure would cause any unnecessary or unjustified damage or distress to the individual concerned; the individual’s reasonable expectations of what would happen to their information; and balancing the rights and freedoms of the data subject with legitimate interests.

In this case, we can confirm that it would not be fair to the individuals to disclose information about this issue as it could cause distress to the individuals.

We do not consider that the individuals would expect the council to disclose any information which may allow them to be identified. Although we acknowledge the legitimate interest in disclosing general information relating to this matter; we do not consider the legitimate interest overrides the rights and freedoms of the individual on this occasion.

In accordance with Section 17 FOIA this letter represents a Refusal Notice for this aspect of the request.