Out of Hours Noise Problems Service

Oxford City Council operates an emergency service to deal with noise problems after 11pm at night. An officer is on standby to respond to requests from members of the public who are experiencing noise nuisance between 11pm and 4am.

Callers to the service will initially speak to staff at a control centre who will either refer the call to our standby officer or to our offices the next working day.

When you ring, describe the noise and where it is coming from. Please provide your full address and telephone number, be as accurate as possible and describe the location if it is going to be difficult to find.

For legal reasons we cannot accept anonymous complaints however, your details will be kept confidential during the investigation.

If your neighbours are often noisy and you would like our assistance we would prefer you to speak to us during office hours first. That gives an opportunity to talk the problems through and for you to understand what we can and cannot do. During the working day please phone 01865 249811.

The primary aim of the out of hours service is to gather evidence and address persistent noise problems rather than one-off situations. Priority is given to callers who have already registered their complaint with us and are on our active casework list.

However, we can deal with noisy parties which continue beyond 11pm and prevent you from sleeping.

There is a common misconception that simply receiving a complaint at night is enough for us to take some sort of action. The Out of Hours officers need to gather evidence to determine whether further action can be taken. This means the officers will need to visit your home to listen to the noise you are complaining about.

In addition to investigating domestic noise sources we also investigate noise from commercial businesses such as pubs, clubs and factories.

Reporting noise problems

Telephone: 01865 249811

Visit our Noise Pollution page for more information.

Page last reviewed 31 January 2012