Number of Nuisance Smell Complaints

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References

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Dear Amber,

Information Request – reference no. DC/7271

Thank you for your information request dated 21^st March, which has been
dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

Our response to your request is as follows:

We are unable to provide this information as doing so would exceed the
18-hour fees limit under Section 12 of the FOIA.

The information quoted in your request is from the government website at
[1]https://www.gov.uk/guidance/nuisance-sme...

You will note from this page that we do not investigate smell / odour from
a domestic premise – smell emanating from a domestic premises is not
capable of being a statutory nuisance as defined by the legislation.

We do investigate odour emanating from industrial / trade or business
premise, as this can amount to a statutory nuisance in law. However, our
records for complaints about odour from business premises also include
Dust / Steam and Effluvia complaints as well as odour.

During the period 1^st January 2021 to 29^th February 2024 we had 393
complaints of “dust, steam, odour or effluvia emanating from Business
Premises.”  In order to accurately calculate how many of these are “smell”
complaints I would need to interrogate these records individually which I
estimate would take me approximately 3 days.

Smoke, for example from a bonfire / log burner is investigated as a
“smoke” nuisance, not a “smell” nuisance. Smell from a bonfire/ Burner
cannot be a statutory nuisance, but the smoke can be.

Due to the complexities of the definitions in law, smell complaints can be
recorded five different ways on our database.

These include

Smoke Bonfire

Smoke Logburner

Smoke Nuisance

Fumes and Gases

Dust, Steam, odour an effluvia

For the period in question we have 1647 record / complaints. To
interrogate these records to identify how many are smell nuisance, I would
estimate will take 3-5 days.

We therefore estimate that it would take an estimated 42-56 hours to
locate, retrieve and extract the requested information.

If you would like to submit a reduced request that could be answered
within the 18-hour limit, we would then proceed with it as a new request.

You may wish to know that you can submit information requests to Dorset
Council via our e-form at
[2]https://www.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/your-co....

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Yours sincerely,

Natalie Campbell
Information Compliance Officer
Assurance [7][IMG]
Dorset Council
[8]dorsetcouncil.gov.uk

[9][IMG] [10][IMG] [11][IMG]

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