A statutory nuisance is a condition on someone’s property, or in the street, that is either harmful to health or a serious interference with the use of your home, and that falls within a specific list set out in Part III of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. If one exists, your local council has a legal duty to investigate and order the person responsible to stop it. If the council will not act, you can take the case to the magistrates’ court yourself.
The Two Tests a Problem Has to Pass
Not every annoying situation qualifies. The law uses two tests, and a problem has to satisfy at least one.
The first is whether the situation is prejudicial to health, meaning injurious or likely to cause injury to health. This is about real physical harm or a genuine risk of disease, not minor discomfort.1legislation.gov.uk. Environmental Protection Act 1990 – Statutory Nuisances: England and Wales
The second is whether the situation amounts to a nuisance in the traditional legal sense: a substantial and unreasonable interference with how you use or enjoy your home. The yardstick is an ordinary person, not someone unusually sensitive. Occasional cooking smells from next door would not clear this bar. A commercial kitchen venting grease-laden fumes into your bedroom window every night probably would.2GOV.UK. Statutory Nuisances: How Councils Deal With Complaints
What the Act Actually Covers
Section 79 of the Act lists the matters that can be a statutory nuisance. If your problem does not fit one of these, this route is closed to you no matter how irritating the situation is.3legislation.gov.uk. Environmental Protection Act 1990 – Section 79
- Premises in a state prejudicial to health or a nuisance — damp, mould, structural defects, and the like. This is the category most used against bad housing conditions.
- Smoke from premises, including persistent smoke from chimneys or bonfires.
- Fumes or gases from any premises.
- Dust, steam, smell, or other effluvia — but only when the source is industrial, trade, or business premises.
- Accumulations or deposits, such as piles of refuse or stagnant water.
- Animals kept in a place or manner that is prejudicial to health or a nuisance.
- Insects coming from industrial, trade, or business premises.
- Artificial light from premises, such as security floodlights or commercial signage spilling into neighbouring homes.
- Noise from premises.
- Noise from vehicles, machinery, or equipment in the street.
Watch the smell category in particular. Dust, steam, and smells only count when they come from business or industrial premises. If a neighbour’s hobby produces awful smells from a residential property, you have to rely on the general premises category or the ordinary nuisance test rather than the dust-and-smells provision.3legislation.gov.uk. Environmental Protection Act 1990 – Section 79
Build the Evidence Before You Complain
Documentation is what turns a complaint into enforcement. The core piece is a nuisance diary: a running log of the date, start time, duration, and nature of each incident, along with how it affected you — kept you awake, forced windows shut, triggered symptoms.
Add physical evidence where you can. Photographs work well for damp, accumulations, or poor property conditions. Audio and video help with noise, though recordings rarely capture what it is like to be inside the room. Note the name and address of the person or business responsible if you can identify them. Many councils provide standard diary sheets or online portals, and using them signals to environmental health that you are organised.
Patterns persuade more than peaks. Three months of moderate nightly noise reads stronger than one unforgettable evening. Officers look for a pattern, and the diary is the pattern.
Making the Complaint to Your Council
Start with the environmental health department at your local council. An officer will usually investigate by visiting your home, sometimes installing monitoring equipment, and sometimes turning up unannounced to witness the problem.2GOV.UK. Statutory Nuisances: How Councils Deal With Complaints
If the officer is satisfied that a statutory nuisance exists, or is likely to occur or recur, the council has a legal duty to serve an abatement notice on the person responsible. The Act says the council “shall” serve the notice, which means they must act once the threshold is met, not that they may choose to.4legislation.gov.uk. Environmental Protection Act 1990 – Section 80
The abatement notice sets out what the responsible person has to do to stop the nuisance, can forbid the activity from recurring, and gives a deadline. It can require specific works, such as installing soundproofing, clearing waste, or repairing drainage.
What Happens If the Notice Is Ignored
Breaching an abatement notice without reasonable excuse is a criminal offence. For residential premises, the original penalty was set at level 5 on the standard scale (£5,000) with an additional daily fine for each day the offence continues after conviction. For industrial, trade, or business premises, the ceiling was higher at £20,000, again with daily penalties on top. Later sentencing legislation has raised the fines available for summary offences, so the actual figures a court can impose today may be considerably higher than those originals.4legislation.gov.uk. Environmental Protection Act 1990 – Section 80
Section 81 gives the council a separate power to go in, carry out the remedial works itself, and recover the cost from the person responsible. If that person owns the premises, the council can pursue a later owner for the expenses as well. The practical point is that the nuisance gets fixed regardless of whether the offender cooperates.5legislation.gov.uk. Environmental Protection Act 1990 – Section 81
If the Council Will Not Act: Taking Your Own Case Under Section 82
Councils are stretched, and sometimes they decline to investigate, decide the threshold is not met, or simply take too long. Section 82 of the Act lets any person aggrieved by a statutory nuisance go directly to the magistrates’ court.6legislation.gov.uk. Environmental Protection Act 1990 – Section 82
Give Written Notice First
Before you approach the court you must give written notice to the person responsible. This step is mandatory, and the court will reject the complaint if you skip it. For noise, at least three clear days must pass between your notice and the court date. For every other type of statutory nuisance, the wait is 21 clear days.7Reigate & Banstead Borough Council. Private Legal Action Explained
The notice should state what the nuisance is, that you intend to take legal proceedings if it is not resolved, and the date. Send it in a way that gives you proof of delivery and keep a copy.
Issuing the Complaint
Once the notice period has run and the nuisance continues, write to the clerk of your local magistrates’ court asking for an appointment to issue a complaint under Section 82. At that appointment you explain the situation to a magistrate, show your notice letters and diary, and ask for a summons against the person responsible.7Reigate & Banstead Borough Council. Private Legal Action Explained
If the magistrate is satisfied that correct notice was given and there are sufficient grounds, a summons is issued and a hearing listed. You present your diary, photographs, recordings, and any witnesses. If the defendant contests the case, it is adjourned for a full hearing.
What the Court Can Order and Who Pays
If the court finds in your favour, it issues a nuisance order requiring the defendant to stop the nuisance and, where needed, carry out specific works to prevent it recurring. Breaching a court-issued order is treated more seriously than breaching a council notice.
The costs rule is what makes Section 82 genuinely useful. The magistrates’ court is bound to order the defendant to pay your reasonable costs if it is satisfied the nuisance existed at the time of the complaint. This is not discretionary. If the nuisance was real when you filed, the defendant pays your expenses for bringing the case.842 Bedford Row. S.82 EPA 1990 Prosecutions and Costs
Why This Route Matters for Tenants
If you rent and the problem is the condition of the building itself — damp, mould, defective drainage — the abatement notice can be served on your landlord rather than on you. Section 79(1)(a) covers premises in a state prejudicial to health, and the responsible person is whoever controls the structural condition causing it.1legislation.gov.uk. Environmental Protection Act 1990 – Statutory Nuisances: England and Wales
Section 82 is often faster than a civil disrepair claim and carries the costs protection above. Landlords who have been ignoring repair requests tend to respond quickly once a court summons lands.
Defences the Other Side May Raise
Two defences come up repeatedly, and it helps to know them whether you are complaining or defending.
The first is reasonable excuse. The Act makes it an offence to breach an abatement notice “without reasonable excuse.” Emergency works, compliance with other legal obligations, or genuinely unforeseen events can qualify. Not wanting to spend the money, or not getting around to it, will not.4legislation.gov.uk. Environmental Protection Act 1990 – Section 80
The second is best practicable means, which is mainly available to industrial, trade, and business premises. If the operator shows that they used the best practicable means to prevent or counteract the nuisance, that is a complete defence. The court weighs the cost of abatement, the severity of the nuisance, and the character of the area. A factory on an industrial estate is judged differently from a restaurant in a residential street. The burden is on the defendant.
Statutory Nuisance Is Not the Same as Common Law Nuisance
A quick boundary note, because the two are easy to confuse. Common law private nuisance is a civil claim in the county court or High Court, usually for damages and an injunction. It is not limited to the Section 79 list, so losses like reduced property value or interference with a right of way can be pursued there. The trade-off is cost, speed, and the risk of losing money on legal fees you may not recover.
Public nuisance at common law is interference with a right shared by the community, such as blocking a public road. Only a public authority can normally bring it, unless you suffered harm distinct from the general public in both kind and degree.9Legal Information Institute (Cornell Law School). Nuisance
Where your problem fits inside Section 79, the statutory route is almost always the better starting point: faster, cheaper, and backed by a council duty to investigate. If you also need compensation for losses already suffered, you will eventually need the common law route as well, because the magistrates’ court mostly orders abatement rather than awarding damages.