Council rapped for failure to follow up on complaint about community centre

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has criticised the London Borough of Barnet for failing to follow up on a complaint about noise at a community centre.

A neighbour of the centre complained that the council had not taken the action it promised following the Ombudsman’s investigation of his previous complaint about the site.

The complainant claimed the noise from the community centre was both a statutory nuisance and a breach of the centre’s lease agreement with the council.

The second Ombudsman investigation found that Barnet did not make any planned visits since its decision on the earlier complaint, despite telling the Ombudsman it would do so.

The Ombudsman said it recognised the council offered planned visits in September 2016 but this was not suitable for the man, and the council did not make any further attempts to undertake planned visits when noisy events were taking place.   

These planned visits were required because the council had identified that the reactive approach was not working as the noise would finish before an officer could attend the site.

Barnet also failed to keep a record of legal advice it obtained about the lease of the site and the operator’s obligations. The Ombudsman also found the council at fault in how it responded to the man’s complaint.

The council has agreed to:

• pay the man £500 in recognition of the distress and a further £100 in recognition of his time and trouble in bringing the complaint to the Ombudsman again;
• seek fresh legal advice on the procedure to monitor any breaches of the lease at the site, and the standard of evidence required to be satisfied if conditions have been breached and formal action is justified;
• make unannounced planned visits to the community centre when events are taking place, and write to the man after each visit;
• give him a decision on whether there is evidence of a breach of the lease or a statutory noise nuisance, and any further action it intends to take.

Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said: “This report highlights Barnet council’s failure to do the things it agreed in our earlier investigation.

“People can only have confidence in their local authorities if they deliver on promises and carry out the action they have agreed, so I’m disappointed it has taken further intervention by my office for the matter to be properly pursued by the council.”