The council’s Regulatory Services team sometimes receives complaints about neighbourhood noise.
This can be anything from dogs barking and frequent late night parties, to noise from pubs and televisions turned up too loud.
Here, Iain MacKinnon explains what his role involves as Environmental Health Manager: “When a noise complaint comes to us, the first thing we do is get in touch with the person complaining to discuss the situation in more detail. We then decide whether it’s actually actionable by us or whether we need to refer it to another agency, such as the police or local housing association.”
Iain continued: “Most complaints are resolved informally but if the noise continues we often visit the area so that we can assess the noise levels and impact of noise for ourselves, using sophisticated sound level monitoring equipment, to establish if it actually represents a statutory nuisance. If it does, we can serve a legal notice requiring abatement of the noise.
“It’s a very interesting job. Everyone deserves to live a life without distress caused by other people and I’m happy to be able to play my part to ensure that happens.”