Episode 3 Noise Squad

All over the UK, millions of people just like you and me

are being driven up the wall by anti-social nuisance noise...

ALARM BEEPS

You know, when I go to work I always feel stressed, and...

I always feel angry at work.

It really is stressful and irritating

and it makes you feel really frustrated.

You just want to tell them to shut up.

..persistent parties,

aggravating alarms

and banging builders.

They're keeping us awake,

disturbing our peace and quiet and driving us to despair.

I just feel very cross and angry and upset at the moment.

When you wake me up in the middle of the night, three o'clock,

that's when I have to get in your face.

But the fightback is on.

Come down, we're getting complaints about the noise.

Across the country, dedicated enforcement teams

are getting to grips with nuisance noise, 24/7.

You can't just leave it and let them get away with it.

You have to keep going on and on and on.

I do need the names of all the tenants that live in the property.

Enough is enough. It's time to put an end to nuisance noise.

Can you open the door, please?

It's time to meet the no-nonsense Noise Squad.

Cracking down on nuisance noise on today's show,

officers call for police back-up to deal with some rowdy revellers.

They're dropping plastic bottles or glasses down on top of us,

I'm wondering if you can send some officers round to give us assistance.

The team tackle a repeat offender.

We've had a complaint about the noise, it's way too loud.

It's vibrating the floor and the ceilings and things,

and it's disturbing your neighbours.

And in the early hours of the morning,

a noise maker turns violent.

Can I have the police, please? I'm being assaulted.

All over the country,

noisy neighbours are driving us round the bend.

It's like hell, like a war zone.

No matter how many times I asked the person to stop it,

it was just happening over and over, and it was driving me insane.

It's one of the biggest problems

that Noise Squads everywhere have to deal with.

We've had complaints from some of the residents

about the little party you're having up there.

Go and turn the music down and then come back and talk to me.

If they would just be more considerate to people...

but they just don't want to be.

And in Westminster, in central London,

the team are called out night after night

to deal with noisy neighbours who just won't shut up.

If you go upstairs and do the same thing,

you will be committing an offence.

If I knock on your door before midnight

and tell you the music is too loud

that music must not get up again to that level.

Make sure it doesn't go on again.

Noise Officer Steve Richardson

has been part of the Westminster Noise Team for seven years,

and he knows better than most that when a noise officer is called to deal with a complaint,

they're never quite sure who, or what, they'll have to deal with.

I was assaulted just recently,

it was only what they call a common assault,

just, I was pushed over.

I felt really shocked.

You think, "OK, right, this has happened, what do I do now?"

I've got to call the police,

you've got to get out of the situation,

get away to a place of safety.

Yeah, you just go into training mode, I suppose.

Tonight, Steve's on his way to deal with an alleged noisy neighbour

that two people have called in to complain about.

There's loud music from a flat,

but one person has registered a complaint

and doesn't want a call-back so we can't go into their flat to witness,

which would have made it nigh-on impossible to deal with,

but fortunately another resident is also affected,

who's willing to let us in to witness,

so hopefully we'll be able to...

witness the nuisance from their flat,

if it is a nuisance,

and then approach the people that are making the noise.

When he arrives, Steve heads for one of the complainant's flats

and hears some disturbing news about the noise maker.

Allegedly, he produced a dagger when confronted about noise in the past.

If he's likely to produce a dagger,

I'm minded to call the police to assist us with talking to him.

It's a worrying development for Steve.

For now, he decides to continue without police back-up

and heads off to find which flat the noise is coming from.

But it's all gone quiet.

That's very odd.

We were just in the flat there,

and you could clearly hear the music in the flat...

..which was a nuisance. It's now quarter to two in the morning, and...

it would have clearly kept... it would have...

It would have kept someone awake in there.

I've literally just stepped over the threshold, and it's gone quiet.

Steve goes to tell the resident the music has stopped.

Sorry to disturb you again.

It's gone very quiet.

The problem I've got is because there was three flats

it could have come from, I've got to be exactly certain.

So, we're going to ring the police, see if he's known to the police.

We'll hang about, see if it starts up again

and then we'll come back up.

I'll try not to disturb you any more. Sorry.

A chat with some other residents returning from a night out

adds to Steve's concerns that this could be a dangerous situation.

They have confirmed that the guy

has threatened violence

and does play his music loud.

This is really serious stuff.

Steve doesn't know if these stories are true

but he's not going to take any risks and calls the police.

I'm ringing from Westminster Council, from the Noise Team.

I've got me voice low because I'm just outside some flats,

I don't want to disturb people.

I just wanted to try and check to see

whether a person was known to you.

He asks the police if the noise maker

has any previous history of violence or carrying weapons.

Yep, thank you very much.

They've logged what that person's reported to us

in a similar situation.

It seems that he was playing music, about two weeks ago,

and they went...

You know, I'm assuming they went and asked him to turn it down

and he threatened them with a dagger.

That's what I've been told.

But it seems it wasn't reported to the police,

so we can't knock on the door at the moment.

They've said if there's another complaint tonight

and we're certain where it's coming from,

the police will come down later on and visit with us.

Although the reports of threats of violence are just hearsay,

Steve is understandably wary.

I'm not willing to visit without the police

because this was pretty much exactly what happened when I was assaulted

so I'm not happy to visit without the police.

I'm just going to go up and check. I thought I might have heard something.

As he was about to leave,

Steve thinks he's heard the music come back on.

He's right.

MUFFLED MUSIC

And he listens to try and work out where the noise is coming from.

With pop music blaring out,

the noise maker starts shouting to add to the noise.

SHOUTING

I'll just go and give the police a ring.

We'll join Steve later as he gets police back-up

and confronts the nuisance noise maker.

Hello, it's the police. Can you open the door, please?

Last year, the Noise Team in York

dealt with over 2,500 complaints.

Right, I just wanted to give you an update.

We're hoping to carry out a seizure...

We've just got another party we've got to go and deal with

at the moment and then you're next on the list.

Right, we'll be with you in about ten minutes. OK, bye, now.

They deal with everything from noisy neighbours...

ROWDY SINGING

I've a right to celebrate, it's cost me a lot of money.

..to crowing cockerels...

-Can you bring them inside, overnight?

-No, don't be daft.

..and faulty alarms.

ALARM SHRIEKS

Apparently, they've not been able to sleep for the last few nights.

Trainee officer Siobhan Metcalfe is learning the ropes

with the council's Noise Squad and today she's heading out on a call

with senior colleague, Craig Delorenzo.

We're just off to a complaint about loud music.

It's just come in and the lady who's made the complaint

is really frustrated about the level of music,

so I'm expecting it to be very loud.

I have met the complainant before,

but we're unsure where the noise is coming from on this occasion.

So, part of this complaint will be

to locate the source of the noise.

When they arrive on site, Craig and Siobhan head inside.

The complainant doesn't want to be on camera

but the pounding bass can be heard in their flat.

BASS THUMPS

Craig asked the complainant to put their TV on

to see if the music can still be heard.

Could you stick it on for us? Just so we've got

some sort of background to say that it's disturbing you from doing that.

What we'll do is, we'll just make some notes

for about 20 minutes or so, and then I'm going to go,

you know, and tell them to...

This isn't acceptable, cos it's too loud.

Craig is clear that this is a noise nuisance.

He's going to be serving an abatement notice

and explains what will happen if it's ignored.

If he doesn't listen to us then the consequences are

that we'll take his stereo, he'll go to court

and he could get a fine, you know?

That's the consequences,

and if he carries on, he'll get another fine.

Having monitored the noise, it's time to take action

and Craig and Siobhan head to the noise maker's flat.

Telling people how to behave in their own home

isn't usually particularly popular

and the team don't know how this noise maker is going to react.

LATCH CLICKS

Hi, Craig from the council. I've had a noise complaint. It's way too loud.

It's vibrating the floor and the ceilings and things,

and it's disturbing your neighbours.

So what I'm going to do is... You've turned it off for us, now,

we're going to serve you with what's called an abatement notice

saying that you must not cause a nuisance to your neighbours.

You need to keep your noise to a reasonable level,

even during the day, OK? And make sure it doesn't cause a problem.

It was way too loud today.

I don't really play the music all the time,

it's maybe once a week, only for an hour, so...

If it's causing a problem, I don't mind turning it off.

It is causing quite a problem today and, you know,

we're not going to stop you playing your music but what you have to do

is play it at a reasonable level.

If you want to play it at that level, you'll have to wear earphones.

-Yeah, that's fine.

-We'll be back in an hour or two

-and if you're not in, we'll just put it through your door. All right?

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

Message delivered, but there have been issues with loud music

coming from this flat in the past

and as they head off, Craig's not convinced

this is the end of the matter.

Although I hope that the abatement notice resolves the matter,

I don't think that this is the end of this issue.

I think he may be trying to play a bit of cat and mouse today.

He was compliant and agreed to do what we asked him to do today,

but I think when we're not there it's going to be a different story

and he's going to put his music on again.

So, it's just a matter of catching him.

But we've given him the benefit of the doubt and hopefully,

you know, after today there won't be any further problems.

When deciding if something is a statutory noise nuisance

that needs to be dealt with,

officers have to use their own judgement.

As a trainee, this has been a useful experience for Siobhan.

I've only seen a couple so far,

and that's probably one of the better ones that I've seen.

I've worked with a case before when I listened to

the recording equipment, that was a stat nuisance we'd considered,

but not as good as witnessing it first hand.

If you're being bothered by anti-social nuisance noise,

you don't have to put up with it.

Help is at hand.

Your local council have more powers than the police

when it comes to enforcing the law on nuisance noise,

so if you've got a problem, pick up the phone

and call the council, not the cops.

Having written up the abatement notice,

Siobhan heads off with her colleague, James, to serve it

and it's a big moment for her.

I've been with an officer and served a notice before,

but this is the first time I've done it myself.

The noise maker may have been reasonable

when she was last at his flat but there's no guarantee

Siobhan will get the same response when she serves the notice.

As this is the first time she's taken the lead

and done it herself, she needs to stay calm

and be very clear about why the notice is being served

and what it means.

DOG BARKS

The good news is there's no music being played,

but the dog's pretty loud.

Hiya, it's Siobhan and James from the council.

The noise maker isn't at home but Siobhan explains

to the person who's answered the door what's going on.

I've got some letters for you

cos we came earlier on today and spoke to him about

the level of noise and music, and said we were going to serve a notice.

So there's one for you and one for him.

The letter's in there as well. They explain what the problem was,

so it's loud music, and from now on it's, kind of, a case of keeping it to a reasonable level.

The person who answered the door is friendly and reasonable

and Siobhan has served her first ever noise abatement notice.

Today I thought that went pretty well.

She seemed quite receptive to the problem that we'd had

and she's already spoken to the person that caused the noise

and she's assuring us it won't happen in future.

In terms of me explaining the process

and, kind of, what's going on, I felt a little bit apprehensive at first

because I hadn't met the other lady but I had met him,

but it seemed to go OK, so I was quite pleased.

Nicely done, Siobhan.

It's job done and, to date, there have been no further complaints

about this flat and no further action has been necessary.

In Westminster, Noise Enforcement Officer Steve Richardson

has been called to a block of flats to deal with a nuisance noise maker

who's playing loud music and shouting in the early hours.

Allegedly, this noise maker has threatened violence

when confronted about his noise-making in the past.

They have confirmed that the guy has threatened violence.

Not knowing who or what could confront him

when he knocks on the noise maker's door is a real worry for Steve.

MUFFLED SHOUTING AND BANGING

So he's called in the police for back-up.

We're just waiting for the police to give us a call

to say that they're on their way.

What I want to do with this one is to speak to the occupier,

I want to confirm his details.

Primarily, I want to get a reduction

in the volume of the music straight away.

Since Steve arrived on site,

the music in the noise maker's flat has been going on and off.

Having witnessed a nuisance taking place, though,

he's going to be taking action,

even though it's now almost four o'clock in the morning.

If he's keeping his neighbours up at ten to four

then I don't care if he does go back to bed,

I think we should knock him up and disturb his sleep.

Steve's had a bit of a noisy past, himself.

He now plays in a function band, quietly,

but it wasn't always that way.

I shouldn't be a noise officer.

I should be a rock star, of course.

I did used to play in a heavier band and we were playing a gig once

and the noise officer did turn up and we had to stop playing.

The police arrive and Steve explains the situation.

I want to just basically confirm who's in there tonight,

who's making the noise tonight.

So, I've already witnessed the nuisance,

so I want to speak to him, get his details

and take it from there, really.

-What's the problem tonight? Is he making a noise, is he?

-Yeah.

-Was there noise coming from that address tonight?

-Yeah.

-Yeah, I've heard it.

-Is it musical?

-Yeah, music. And he's shouting.

He's kind of going, "Come on," you know, just shouting around.

Does it sound like there's more than one up there?

Erm, I couldn't quite make out.

I think the last time I listened, it sounded like there was only one.

-OK.

-All right.

As they head inside, the officers ask

if he has any background info on the noise maker.

Have you been here before?

No, I haven't, no. I've been here, you know, here earlier.

But not anything in the past?

I was told that a neighbour had gone up to speak to him

to ask him to reduce the volume

and then he had come down and threatened them with a knife.

Do you want us to wait here or do you want us to go in first?

It's up to you.

If you can, kind of, do it one either side.

Not sure what to expect,

Steve and the police officers knock on the noise maker's door.

HE BANGS DOOR

Despite many attempts,

the noise maker doesn't come to the door.

Hello, it's the police, can you open the door, please?

MUSIC BLARES LOUDLY

There's some movement inside.

Hello, police. Can you open the door, please?

MUSIC STOPS

The music is turned off but there's still no sign of the occupant.

Hello, sir, it's the police. Can you open the door, please?

It's a tense time for Steve and the police officers.

-It's the police.

-Come on, then, we haven't got all night, mate.

Given the neighbours' allegations about threats of violence,

the police officers are prepared for trouble.

They're ready with pepper spray if the situation turns violent.

Finally, the door is opened.

-This guy here...

-I'm from Westminster Council.

The music that you're playing tonight...

You know it's 4am at the moment.

Can you just turn it down a bit?

Got to think of your neighbours, mate.

Cos even though you haven't got work in the morning, other people have.

After some gentle negotiation,

the noise maker agrees to be reasonable

and his neighbours can finally get some sleep.

He confides in Steve and the police

that he's been through some very difficult personal circumstances.

It's a little bit sad, really, when people get to that state,

you know, you do feel sympathy for them,

but also, you've got to deal with the problem that they're causing.

He's agreed to switch off the music, now,

so there's some improvement, there, for the residents tonight.

It's been a trying night for Steve,

but with the music off, he's decided that this time

he won't be taking any further action.

Steve's noise busting isn't over yet, though.

We'll join him later as he attends another call

about a noisy neighbour, and this time things do turn violent.

-Bleep.

-Can we have the police, please? I'm being assaulted.

In York, trainee officer Siobhan

takes the lead on a case for the first time.

I feel a little apprehensive.

I want it to go as well as possible and that it be a successful outcome.

And in Belfast, officers lay down the law to a student party.

Don't stand there lying. I was outside watching you,

acting Jack the Lad at the top window.

The number one complaint to most noise enforcement teams

around the UK is about noisy neighbours.

Parties, 24/7, seven days a week.

You know, even ten people, even five people can make

so much noise if they get a little bit drunk

and it all gets out of hand.

They party all night long and I don't mind,

but you, sort of, wake up and you think, "Why don't they stop?"

Neighbours that refuse to keep it down

and keep us awake into the early hours are a nightmare.

It can upset your whole living routine, you know?

Even to the point where you're unable to go to work

because you're, maybe, up all night.

With six years of experience on the job between them,

Joe and Steve of the Belfast Noise Squad are used to dealing

with complaints about noisy neighbours.

You need to turn the music right down, or off.

Bring in the guests from the back and keep the back door locked.

That's all right, now, there won't be a problem.

Tonight, the lads are working the Saturday night shift

and they've been called out to deal with a party

that neighbours say is too noisy.

Looks like the flats are one property.

Looks like they're all one property, the party's going on two floors.

If they'd close the windows

-I think that would probably sort the music out.

-Yeah.

Different councils approach nuisance noise in slightly different ways.

Here in Belfast, if the team witness nuisance noise

they can serve a warning notice.

If the noise maker doesn't quieten down

and the lads witness nuisance noise again on the same night

they can hand out a £100 fine.

If that doesn't do the trick,

the noise maker could be taken to court and given a larger fine.

Joe and Steve have decided

that the noise here is bad enough for them to have a word.

-You just going to do a verbal, then?

-We'll just do a verbal, aye.

In order to get the attention of the noise makers,

the lads shine a torch at one of the flat's windows.

There's a guy sitting at the window, here.

I'm trying to get his attention, but...

We need a brighter light.

Can you come down to the door for me? From the Council.

-I don't know about that, there.

-Right.

Can you come down and talk to us or we'll be phoning the police?

Joe and Steve are being reasonable.

Is the guy who lives there still there?

Bleep.

Sorry?

Bleep.

I think he said, "Go away, Joe," or something like that.

-Will I just ring the cops and get them out?

-Yeah, do.

With a distinct lack of co-operation,

the lads decide the only way to get this music turned down

is to hand out a written warning.

And as they're being sworn at,

they're calling for police back-up to serve it.

As Joe calls the police,

someone starts throwing plastic cups and bottles out of the window.

How're you doing? I'm from Belfast City Council's noise service.

I'm trying to speak to the occupants here.

They won't come to the door to us,

instead they're just sitting at the top windows and shouting abuse down

and dropping plastic bottles or glasses down on us.

I just wondered if you can send some officers out

to give us some assistance to get them out.

What do you want?

Bleep. Baldie!

No backing down, no backing down!

They're students. That's our future of Belfast.

Basically, this group of students, here,

are refusing to come to the door,

they're shouting down abuse at us, so I've rang for police assistance.

Hopefully, when the police come that'll get them to the door,

then we can have a good conversation with them.

Give them a good telling off.

And if they are students, here, around Belfast,

hopefully we can get them reported to the university for their behaviour.

If these party-goers are students,

then they've got a first class degree in stupidity.

If they'd come to the door, this could have been dealt with quickly.

Now the police are involved.

The police have just arrived now,

so, hopefully we can go and get to speak to one of them right away,

and issue this warning notice.

With the police on the scene, it's a different story.

The door is opened and Joe gives them a well deserved lecture.

-Do you want to get arrested, now?

-Why?

For throwing things out the window. You were abusive.

I don't think I actually did.

Well, I witnessed you doing it, so did he.

I think that's proof enough.

You're getting reported to the university, both of you,

all of you are for your behaviour.

Joe and Steve serve a warning notice.

This is a warning notice. It lasts till seven o'clock tomorrow morning.

If the noise continues tonight, we'll come back with the police and fine you £100.

Can you check and make sure that's his proper name?

I'm not sure it's his proper name he's given.

He's refusing to give me any other details.

Everything was explained to the first guy who came to the window.

We pressed the buzzer and instead you wanted to shout down

-bleep and bleep and drop all your plastic bottles down.

-Do you think this is hilarious?

That's why the police are here now. Don't stand there and tell lies.

I was outside watching you acting Jack the Lad at the top window.

All right, so, if you close the windows, get all the noise off.

Anybody else complains tonight, we'll have to come back, OK?

-Thank you.

-Thanks very much.

-Thanks for your assistance, there.

Because of their behaviour from the window, they will definitely...

Hopefully they're all students.

The girl definitely said she was a student at the University of Ulster

so we can definitely trace her.

The Environmental Health Officer will trace her through the university,

she will be reported.

Hopefully... we've got his ID, hopefully he's a student, now, I don't know.

He was laughing and joking and smirking,

he wouldn't give his proper details so we're not entirely sure

if he was a student or not. But if he is,

we do have his name and date of birth and his proper address,

so he will be easily traced through the university if he is a student.

The Noise Team submitted a complaint to the University

who are now carrying out a full investigation into the incident

which could lead to disciplinary action being taken

against the students involved.

Every year, the City of York's Noise Squad

deal with hundreds of complaints about loud music.

Every night till the early hours, relentless, non-stop noise

that something could be done about. So, it's unreasonable.

And the big chunk of these are about music

coming from commercial premises.

MUSIC BLARES

I don't know what they're thinking of to have this sort of music

in this sort of area. This is a residential area, you know.

And to have the doors open and everything else, it's quite bizarre.

It's a matter of sleeping really, isn't it?

It affects your next day, and your lifestyle because

you can't get to sleep at half past 11 at night.

And if you're up for work the next day it is a bind,

because you can't get your normal seven or eight hours of sleep.

Trainee officer Siobhan Metcalfe is dealing with a complaint

coming from a pub over a weekend but for her this is no ordinary case.

Today will be the first time

I go out as an officer investigating a complaint.

Usually I'm assisting other officers

and going out with them and watching what they're doing,

but today I've got the opportunity to lead it first hand

and see what kind of problems I might encounter

and experience different ways to deal with them.

At the moment, I feel a little apprehensive.

I want to make sure I've got the right information available

and to give the manager of the pub the correct information.

And also, because it's my first case, obviously

I want it to go as well as possible and it be a successful outcome.

Siobhan has taken advice from other members of the Noise Team

but it's time for her to head out and deal with her first case alone.

At the minute, we're almost at the pub where we need to go

and visit the manager.

This is just to discuss how they've...

What they've done over the weekend, in terms of having live bands on,

and also just to see if there's anything we can advise them on

in future just to prevent it being a nuisance again.

As there have been complaints about the pub,

Siobhan is going to be serving them with a warning letter.

But she's also going to be acting proactively and giving them advice

to try and stop things going further. So it's extremely important

that the advice she gives is clear and correct.

-Hiya, are you Becca?

-Yes, I am.

Hi, it's Siobhan from the City of York Council.

-I spoke to you earlier about seeing if we can have a chat...

-Yeah!

-..about the complaints we've had, is that OK?

-Yep, that'd be great.

Siobhan explains what she needs to do.

I just want to chat about what you had on, on the Saturday,

what kind of things you put in place to measure any noise,

if you did at all, and where it was. I believe it was outside, so I just want to go outside in the area and...

-Yeah, not a problem.

-And that was it really.

And just see if we can give you any advice as well. OK?

So step one, find out what was happening.

Step two, find out if anything was done to monitor noise levels.

And step three, look at where the music was being played.

I mean, with it being my first festival what I do, personally,

to, kind of, give myself a hand

in terms of this kind of thing happening was,

I approached other pubs, not just in the vicinity around myself,

who gave me a few basic guidelines. I've got a friend,

well, two friends that deal with festivals,

one of them deals with crowd control in particular

which also deals with noise control as well.

So I did speak to those people to get pointers on what I could do.

So, the pub were holding a live music festival.

Siobhan's next job is to find out what steps,

if any, were taken to monitor noise levels.

What I did do on the day was...

I walked across the street

towards the back of where the bands were played,

around the front and then to the side,

I'm not going to lie, you could actually hear the noise

but I didn't find as though it was offensive in any way, shape or form.

The loudest band that we had on the day was between three o'clock

and five o'clock in the afternoon. We then had a DJ on

who played some mellow, kind of, reggae tunes afterwards

and then we had an acoustic band on from six till eight,

so the reason why I did it like that,

I thought the noisier could be smack bang in the middle of the day

and then, obviously, the acoustics should be a bit more mellow

in the evening, and we ended at eight.

Yes, that is a good plan in terms of, kind of,

mellowing the music down later in the evening.

The manager of the pub is clearly aware that the music festival

could have disturbed the local residents

and takes her responsibilities seriously.

But Siobhan has to find out exactly what was going on

and heads outside to see where the music was being played.

-The bands were there. We did have like a big marquee up there.

-All right, OK, yeah.

And the speakers that they had for the PA,

there was one just behind that brick wall and one just behind that brick wall

facing out that way. The guys that were DJ-ing,

their noise was at a complete minimum.

The only band that was quite loud

was the one we had between three and five.

One of the complaints we did receive was in that time period,

so at least you've maybe identified that if you have that band back,

maybe just lower the level a little bit

and then that would just eliminate the problem altogether, yeah?

The manager is being very reasonable

but having had some complaints Siobhan has to take action.

Because we've received some complaints,

we've had to send a standard letter out as well, OK?

So, in there is a standard letter saying we've received a complaint

and this is what it's from, from the bands that we just discussed,

and, kind of, things you should be considering and putting into place,

which we've kind of talked about,

and also what would happen if we witnessed it being a nuisance,

well, we call it a statutory nuisance, and then we kind of take...

-Take it from there.

-Yeah, take it from there, really.

Inside there as well is a leaflet that you can get online

from the Council but it's just added information.

Just, kind of, the things we chatted about, OK?

-Brilliant.

-So, I think that should be it, really.

-OK?

-Fingers crossed.

She may have been apprehensive earlier in the day,

but now it's done, Siobhan is happy with how things went.

Now that I've got my first complaint over, out of the way,

I feel quite... Not quite relieved,

but I also feel it's built a bit more confidence

in what I'm actually doing

and that what I do know I'm portraying across pretty well

and also that their understanding is increased

from what they need to be getting on with.

And it seems her message has got through.

If we are going to continue to be putting on these kind of festivals,

obviously, we want everyone to try to get involved as much as possible.

We do want, you know, local residents and local businesses

not to be affected by that,

or to feel as though they've been affected by it.

And just keep noise to a minimum.

Now that I do understand exactly what I can do to help in future,

it was definitely, definitely a good meeting in terms of that.

With the visit over, it's back to the office,

where there are plenty more cases

for Siobhan and her colleagues to deal with.

In Westminster, problems with noisy neighbours

are one of the Noise Squad's biggest issues.

Noise Officer Steve Richardson

has already dealt with a complaint about a noisy neighbour

who had allegedly threatened violence in the past.

Now, he's on his way to investigate a complaint

about loud music in a block of flats.

This is loud music.

We're just making sure we've got the correct address.

It's loud music the family have complained about,

loud music from another flat.

And we're going to go in and they've agreed we can visit,

go in and take a listen to the music from within that flat.

Before Steve confronts the noise maker, he's going to check in

with one of their neighbours to assess how bad the problem is.

Once inside, he can hear the music.

BASS THUMPS

How long's the music been playing for?

Since eight o'clock, every weekend.

Apparently when the parent's not home, the children, teenagers,

they do parties and all that.

But the weeks before, to be honest, what I used to do,

I used to bang on the floor just so that they stop.

But they just stop for about half an hour and then they start again.

My children in the morning, when they wake up in the morning,

they always say, "Dad, we couldn't sleep tonight

"because of the music and the noise downstairs."

And the trouble is, sometimes they end up

with a fight, because they're teenagers.

They start shouting, they go outside their flat as well.

I spoke to the occupier there before.

They're OK, I mean, they turned it down at that time.

-That's right.

-OK.

The nuisance noise is having a big impact on this neighbour's life.

You know when I go to work I always feel stressed

and I always feel angry at work.

Is it possible that I could just take a quick listen in the bedroom?

If the children are in there then don't disturb them.

But if I could stand so that the...

It's nearly two o'clock in the morning

and Steve can hear the music in the children's bedroom.

It's still clearly audible here. I'm happy with that, yeah.

I remember they gave me the occupier's details last time.

I'm absolutely certain I've got the occupier's details.

-We'll go and speak to them now.

-All right, yeah.

And hopefully, we'll get the music turned off for you now.

But, at the very least, they will get a notice served on them.

In Westminster, if Steve and his colleagues decide

that someone is responsible for nuisance noise,

they can serve them with a formal written notice.

This means that a noise maker is legally obliged to quieten down.

If the notice is ignored, they could face prosecution.

Steve heads downstairs.

It's time to have a word with the person who's making such a racket.

OK.

So, I'm happy it's a statutory nuisance there,

so I'm going to go down and try and speak to some of the occupiers.

The last time Steve was here,

the music was turned off without any problems.

MUSIC BLARES

After a few minutes, the noise maker comes to the door.

-Good morning. Hello.

-Hello.

-I think we've met before, haven't we?

-Who are you?

I'm from the Noise Team at Westminster.

Our cameraman explains he's filming Steve.

I want to announce myself to you. How about that? Hello.

The noise maker might not care about her neighbours,

but it seems she does care about being filmed behaving in an anti-social manner.

Listen, why don't you switch off?

Because I will switch you off myself.

Steve decides to leave and as he does so

the noise maker attacks the cameraman.

SHOUTING

Enough!

Bleep, bleep.

We are leaving.

Despite Steve's best efforts to calm the situation,

things soon go from bad to worse as our cameraman tries to leave.

Can we have the police, please? I'm being assaulted.

The cameraman was OK and undeterred and when the police arrived

she was served with a written notice which seemed to do the trick.

There were no further complaints and for this night at least,

peace and quiet was restored to the neighbourhood.

It's been a busy shift for the Noise Squad.

Can you open the door, please?

They've dealt with violent noise-makers...

Trouble is, sometimes they end up with a fight,

because they're teenagers,

they start shouting, they go outside their flat as well.

..a problematic party...

You're getting reported to the university, all of you, for your behaviour.

..and a trainee officer took on her first case.

Just want to chat about what you had on, on the Saturday,

what kind of things you put in place to measure any noise,

if you did at all, and where it was.

There's no let-up in the battle against

anti-social nuisance noise, though,

and plenty more cases still to be dealt with by the Noise Squad.

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