Council controls noise informally

Press, 29 June 1983, Page 5

Council controls noise informally

Many complaints being received by the Christchurch City Council since the new Noise Control Act started this month could be dealt with informally, without using noise abatement notices, according to a health inspector. So far, the council has not started an on-the-spot, 24hour service to investigate complaints of excessive noise. It is still not satisfied about rights of entry on to private property and the availability of the police to accompany control officers where there might be trouble in getting noise stopped. Mr T. Moody, a supervising health inspector, said that only two of the six parties complained of since June 1 would have required abatement notices. Cooperation could have been

obtained in the other cases. Mr Moody said that publicity surrounding the new legislation had obviously made more people aware of action that might be taken against noise nuisances. There had been “quite a number of stereo complaints” since June 1, and co-operation had been obtained in at least reducing the sound level when the complaints were investigated later. Of 35 complaints made to the council’s answering service after hours, 10 had come from two persons objecting to hotel noise which the council had already been dealing with for some time under normal procedures. The hotel owners were working on reducing the sound from bands heard by neighbours. When Mr Moody has a

full month’s statistics, he will present them to the clean air and health committee. On both week-ends and weekdays, most complaints are still being made about noise occurring between 8.30 a.m. and 5 p.m. It would help the council if persons bothered by a recurring noise problem would let health inspectors know about it during the week, said Mr Moody. Then, there was a chance that a solution could be found before the next time it happened. “We can try to prevent problems,” he said. Mr Moody said that some complaints had been difficult to investigate because callers had either given false names or had complained about noise from addresses that did not exist.