Summary
The report below shows the effect of the concentrated number of premises on the local residents by way of public nuisance and anti-social behaviour and is why we are proposing that these areas should remain in this CIA, on grounds of prevention of public nuisance. For example, reports of noise from the premises and from shouting in the street. A number of these complaints cannot be associated with one particular premises and is caused by the effect of the number of premises and the number of customers frequenting the areas at particular times of day and night.
Unfortunately, there is no data available with regards to the number of complaints from anti-social behaviour such as urination/defecation in the streets, overflowing waste or littering often dropped by customers on their way home or from smoking outside of the premises; drug use; vandalism/graffiti etc. However, it is hoped that this data will be available for future reviews.
Noise and Odour Complaints
Noise and odour complaints recorded between 1 April 2017 – 31 March 2022, were retrieved from the Environmental Health Departments database platform which collates complaints received.
The data below includes all complaints relating to licensed premises including noise nuisance and odour complaints within each Cumulative Impact Area.
A complaint is recorded when a member of the public raises a concern through one of the council’s contact portals. Noise is a subjective experience of sound and complaints depict the prevalence of nuisance individuals are willing to report, not the prevalence of negative experiences of sound. It should also be noted that the data does not capture whether noise complaints are sources from a serial complainant or multiple concerned residents.
The data below in Figure 1, shows that there was a significant increase of public nuisance complaints received from the Strand in 2021. This is likely to be due to the public returning to premises after Covid-19 and also enjoying the use of the outside areas more than pre-Covid19.
Figure 1: Number of public nuisance (noise/odour) complaints from Licensed premises per year in each of the two Cumulative Impact Areas