In a recent case, the Roythornes Regulatory Team together with instructed barrister David Hercock of 6 Pump Court Chambers, secured a victory for an agricultural client in Lincolnshire against the local Council. We were supported by expert evidence from Clive Bentley of Sharps Acoustics and Simon Alexander from SA Consulting.
Our client appealed an abatement notice served on them by the Local Authority following a determination of a statutory noise nuisance from fans installed in one of the potato stores on site which were allegedly affecting the residents of the neighbouring property.
The allegation of statutory noise nuisance arose from the very wet weather in October 2023 causing the potato crop harvested to be so wet that the fans in the store needed to be on full blast for the duration of the drying season in order to prevent the whole crop being lost. If the use of the fans was found to create a statutory nuisance, then our client would have been prevented from using them at their highest fan speed (and possibly at all) in the future, even where they were required. The financial implications for our client, not to mention the potential food waste issues of any future crop being lost, were vast.
Following a 4-day trial, the District Judge concluded that the Council had unreasonably served the abatement notice as 1. There was no statutory nuisance and 2. They had not properly engaged with our client during the investigation process. The determination of no statutory nuisance was due to the noise not being of a sufficient level to cause significant interference and our client had been exercising ordinary use of their land – i.e. agricultural storage activities on land historically used for agricultural storage purposes in a predominantly agricultural area.
Roythornes were also able to secure the recovery of a proportion of our client’s costs in bringing the successful appeal.
Our client had this to say following the victory in Court: “I would like to thank Rebecca and David for all their expertise in getting the verdict we needed for the business. This is very important to our business as existing and future crops would not be able to be properly stored if the notice was upheld.”
This case illustrates the importance of challenging enforcement action by regulators, including Local Authorities when that action seems to be contrary to common sense and adversely impacts your business activity. In some cases, enforcement action is justified, but in many cases it is not and is open to challenge.
If you are facing enforcement action, investigations or complaints from neighbours about noise, smells, dust etc from your premises or land, please get in touch with Rebecca Ironmonger for expert advice.