Number of complaints received for the following categories a) VIBRATION and b) LOW FREQUENCY NOISE (Tonal)

The request was refused by Vale of White Horse District Council.

Ms Jennie Hester

Dear Vale of White Horse District Council,

My request to Abingdon Town Council was forwarded from them to you on 13 June 2011.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, please could you provide the following information for the last full year for which records are
kept; the number of complaints received for the following categories (or your equivalent):

a) Vibration
b) Low Frequency Noise (Tonal)

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

1. No statutory nuisance found
2. Nuisance found, formal warning issued
3. Noise Abatement Notice issued

Please provide the guidance or applicable criteria used in the assessment of the above which shows the levels at which you would
deem a statutory nuisance to have arisen.

Please could you provide any documentation held for noise abatement notices served for the above which include pumps, boilers or fans
and redacting any information deemed necessary by the council.

In addition I would be grateful if you could provide information on what action your authority can take to abate a nuisance where a
complaint of statutory nuisance has been made; and found to be true when the nuisance arises from mechanical noise but the property in question belongs to the council or forms part of the housing stock owned or managed by the council. Please provide the relevant
guidance or assessments used in such instances.

Thank you.

Yours Faithfully
Ms Jennie Hester

FOI Vale, Vale of White Horse District Council

Dear Ms Hester,

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request. We have already logged
your request (our reference 11/71, your
reference [1][email address]) as Abingdon Town
Council forwarded it to us on 14 June 2011.

To avoid duplication, we have not logged this request and will continue to
respond to the request as stated above.

I trust this is satisfactory, however please do contact us via email on
[2][Vale of White Horse District Council request email] should you have any questions.

Kind regards,

FOI team
Vale of White Horse District Council

>>> Ms Jennie Hester <[FOI #76315 email]>
17/06/2011 19:12 >>>
Dear Vale of White Horse District Council,

My request to Abingdon Town Council was forwarded from them to you
on 13 June 2011.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, please could you provide the
following information for the last full year for which records are
kept; the number of complaints received for the following
categories (or your equivalent):

a) Vibration
b) Low Frequency Noise (Tonal)

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

1. No statutory nuisance found
2. Nuisance found, formal warning issued
3. Noise Abatement Notice issued

Please provide the guidance or applicable criteria used in the
assessment of the above which shows the levels at which you would
deem a statutory nuisance to have arisen.

Please could you provide any documentation held for noise abatement
notices served for the above which include pumps, boilers or fans
and redacting any information deemed necessary by the council.

In addition I would be grateful if you could provide information on
what action your authority can take to abate a nuisance where a
complaint of statutory nuisance has been made; and found to be true
when the nuisance arises from mechanical noise but the property in
question belongs to the council or forms part of the housing stock
owned or managed by the council. Please provide the relevant
guidance or assessments used in such instances.

Thank you.

Yours Faithfully
Ms Jennie Hester

show quoted sections

Ms Jennie Hester

Dear FOI Vale,

Thankyou and I look forward to receiving your reply to determine the best way forward.

Yours sincerely,

Ms Jennie Hester

Ms Jennie Hester

Dear FOI Vale,

Dear Ms Hester,

Thank you for your email and I will investigate this further with my
colleagues to ascertain what information is already in the public domain.

I believe that we do hold the information however it is not recorded in a
way which facilitates prompt locating and retrieval. To explain this
further, noise complaints are categorised (and recorded) by the type of
property they originate from e.g. domestic rather than by the nature of
the noise. In order to identify the information you require, we will need
to screen all complaints to first determine the nature of the complaint
and then we would need to undertake further screening to identify which of
those complaints relate to vibration and low frequency noise.

I hope the above goes some way to explain the rationale behind our
estimated costs.

Kind regards,

Penny

21 June 2011
Dear Ms Hester,

Following on from my email of yesterday, I have checked with my colleagues
as to what information is already in the public domain.

As actual complaint records themselves contain personal data which is
subject to the Data Protection Act, we don't publish complaints on our
website. However we can readily provide broad summaries of complaint
numbers broken down by premises type should you require this information.

Kind regards,

Penny

Penny O'Callaghan
Shared Risk and Information Officer

HR, IT and Customer Services

Dear Penny,

Your recent replies...pasted above... have come in to me under "Abingdon" and this recent reply to you was sent
via your link...so am sending again to avoid confusion....

to you at Vale of White Horse...

Thank you for your email in response to my FOI request. It is potentially possible that such information would also be covered by the EIR Act. You are requested to apply the EIR regulations to my request . I am of the opinion that low frequency noise and vibration are covered under the Environmental Health Act 1990. As such any information held is likely to fall under the EIR Act. EIR is covered within the FOI Act and I would refer you to the following guidance provided by the ICO in terms of charges applicable to the EIR Act:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/~/media/documents/...

The relevant section is detailed below:
.
When dealing with requests for information under EIR, public authorities are permitted to charge a reasonable amount. Charging
for environmental information clearly states that where charges are applied, they must only cover actual costs incurred by the public
authority in producing the information, for example the cost of paper, printing and postage. Unlike the charging regime for freedom
of information requests, public authorities dealing with an EIR request cannot charge for the amount of time taken to identify,
locate and retrieve information, which may be done when the appropriate limit has been exceeded.

For the purposes of a legitimate request an email address is sufficient and this has been held by the ICO.
You are requested to treat my request under both the FOI and EIR Acts, review the information held, identify which information falls within which act and provide this accordingly.

Accordingly I would be grateful if you could provide the information in an electronic format and to my email address which
negates the needs paper, printing, or postage.

I am of the opinion that as the information held will fall under both acts, be held electronically and this information be forwarded to me by way of email that it will fall within the scope of my request and without charge.

We may carry on discussing this further but I feel that there has been sufficient delay and I would ask you to make a formal reply in the context of this email, provide the information you deem to be appropriate within the limit of £450 and provide exceptions for the information withheld.

Upon receipt of your reply I will should it be appropriate refer this to the ICO under section 50 of the FOI act with details of previous decisions by the ICO of matters relating to environmental information.

Yours sincerely,

Ms Jennie Hester

Ganesh Sittampalam left an annotation ()

The original request to Abingdon Town Council which is being responded to by Vale of White Horse District Council can be found here: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/nu...