Name

Subject

Reason

Interest

Councillor Jordan

Library Modernisation –

Project Initiation

Document

Director of Trading

Route (Café operating

in Devonport Library)

Personal

Councillor Damarell

Noise Nuisance

Plymouth Community

Homes Employee

Personal

(a)

the service dealt with three types of noise nuisance, namely –

• domestic noise (including dogs);
• commercial noise; and
• leisure facility noise;

(b)

the law states that it must first be established that a noise nuisance exists before action can be taken;

(c)

the department operated on a limited budget and had to deal with incidents in order of priority.  Current policy was to deal with established persistent noise;

(d)

officers had the use of recording equipment available to them and undertook visits at various times of the day, this included a weekend out of hours service which covered Friday and Saturday evenings between the hours of 8 pm and 1 am;

(e)

the out of hours service contact number was not generally available to the public but was currently only provided to complainants who had already established the existence of a persistent noise nuisance in order that officers on-call could attend the scene at very short notice with a view to catching the offenders in the act;

(f)

it was often the case that many complaints (80%) could be solved by officers simply talking to the offender and bringing the problem to their attention;

(g)

officers worked closely with the anti-social behaviour unit and registered social landlords to deal with domestic noise to try and resolve issues at a local level;

(h)

where situations could not be resolved locally by mediation the following enforcement options were available, including –

• serving of notice under the Environmental Protection Act;
• use of anti-social behaviour byelaws;
• issue of Fixed Penalty Notice;
• revoking of premises licence;
• confiscation of equipment:

(i)

a review of the service was planned to include –

·         possible extension of the availability and scope of the out of hours service;

·         considering full implementation of the use of fixed penalty notices in the night time hours.

(1)

a further update is presented to the panel later in the year with the Cabinet Member for Cooperatives and Community Development being invited to attend and comment on the outcome of the service review;

(2)

the statistics quoted during the presentation is circulated to panel members.

(a)

the task and finish group would also need to take place in September as, should one of the recommendations be to commission the service, a contract would have to be in place by April 2013;

(b)

it was anticipated that the total funding to be received for this project would be £750k;

(c)

the lead officer advised that, due to his close working involvement in this particular area he would be unable to support the panel for the purposes of this task and finish group, however, a suitable replacement lead officer would be identified.

(a)

the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board would be considering the panel’s draft work programme at its meeting on Wednesday 25 July 2012;

(b)

appropriate dates were still being sought from Directors regarding submission of the Life Centre and ICT/Customer Service Improvement Updates;

(c)

the Gambling Act Statement of Licensing Policy – 3 Year Review was currently under way and out to public consultation.  The timeframe for approval of any changes was as follows –

• Closure of public consultation – 28 September 2012;
• Customers & Communities OSP – 12 September 2012 (if agreed);
• Cabinet – 13 November 2012;
• City Council – 3 December 2012.

It was anticipated that, as a result of the first review in 2009, there would be little need to make any significant change to the Policy on this occasion.