Officials apologise over noise complaint handling

Friday 16 October 2020

Government officials in Jersey have apologised to an islander who claimed that his complaints about metal trolley noise from a nearby business weren't properly handled.

St. Peter resident Allan Liddle told the States Complaints Panel that he had put his complaint to Environmental Health about noise from Onogo at St Peter’s Technical Park last year, which was then passed on to the Planning Department.

Mr Liddle initially complained that Onogo’s use of five storage containers and around 20 aluminium supermarket-type trolleys outside of his house was causing a significant amount of distress because of how much noise they were causing. 

Explaining why an enforcement officer hadn’t investigated within 21 days, as was the usual procedure for a complaint of that level, Senior Planner Chris Jones said that he “thought it was easier for myself to get involved” so he could “get a better understanding of their operational requirements.” 

He said that “the Managing Director [of Onogo] advised me they were storing parts of racking systems for the unit – they were desperately trying to sort out their storage for the site” and “were inundated with parcels and packages.” 

"There’s a balance to be had between what you would expect a technical park operator to be able to do and the impact on residents.”

Mr Liddle, however, said that he felt Onogo “took advantage of that situation.”

Mr Jones pointed out that he had tried to renegotiate and “tighten” the old, looser 1986 permissions that Onogo were operating by, making the stricter permissions a condition of a planning application for a new mezzanine the company had put in.

However, the company decided not to pursue the mezzanine, and as a consequence did not have to abide by the new rules. 

He added that, “we do what we can to try and work with the wordings, and work with the tenants,” and that talks with Onogo had been ongoing. 

But Mr Liddle felt he didn't know if progress was being made, so he escalated his complaint in November. 

However, he still felt he was not getting a sufficient response and put in another complaint early this year when Onogo put in a planning application to extend their operations to a new unit, feeling his concerns were being ignored.

Following this, action was taken in June and an enforcement notice given to Onogo. 

When asked by Board Chairman if the notice was “a little late in the day”, Mr Jones said they had “tried to give them a bit of leeway because they were employing additional people,” during the pandemic, and wanted “a balance struck between keeping them going, keeping the economy going but at the same time making sure residents in the community weren’t affected.” 

In response to this, Mr Liddle re-emphasised it was the lack of communication he had an issue with, saying: “I would have accepted four months of heightened activity as long as there was an end to it.”

Referring to the way in which the complaints process had been handled, Mr Jones said he didn’t know why it had happened, but admitted that “we didn’t have the opportunity to do what we should have done, and for that we have apologised.”

Concluding, Natural Environment Director Willie Peggie said: “we need to make sure we’ve got robust processes in place that stop this kind of this happening again.” 

The Complaints Board will share its findings in a report due later in the year.