UKC

We've tolerated the noise from the pub next door for years - the new landlord has been really good and has cracked down on the noise late at night (caused by the staff having a drink after the punters have gone home!) and I get on with him well.

However, the brewery seems to be shifting his beer deliveries earlier and earlier.  We've not said a word as it's crept to 7:15am, and it seems that 7am is now standard.  They come around once a week.

This morning we were woken up by staff dropping empty kegs onto concrete at 6:05am.  Once our very nervous dog is spooked, that's it, so one of us had to get up and sit with her.

I had a word, and he reckons that the brewery just tell him when to expect the delivery and he has no say in the matter - which I believe.  He said he'll ask them to try not to come before 7am but can't promise anything.

Question - is it actually legal to make a noisy delivery this early?  I tried to find out what the rules are, and found lots of reference to allowable 'quiet deliveries', but I don't think that rolling kegs around can possibly qualify as quiet.

Does anyone know what the actual rules (if there are any) are?

You have my sympathies.

Consider contacting both the local Council (they will have noise control officers) and the Managing Director of the Brewery.

You have my sympathy.  We were burgled a few years ago and my wife came back with the dog while they were still in the house.  The dog went nuts and has been wired ever since - every time the house creaks at night he barks, and he's teaching new dog to do the same.  The milkman got into the habit of delivering at midnight which wasn't great - but every one got fed up with warm milk that was almost off in the summer and cancelled, so at least that problem's gone away.

I hate London hotels - nothing good about them, unless you can afford to buy the place and spend accordingly.  The worst night's sleep I had in one was when the laundry people launched the laundry cages at the top of a ramp, let them clatter down and smash into the wall at the end.  That little exercise took half and hour and started at 3am.  Great.

Just curious, but was the pub there when you bought/rented the property? 

Does this lead into something along the lines of 'well what did you expect then'? 

Why don't you ask the pub owner to supply filled sacks or tyres for the kegs to be dropped onto? They can they then be wheeled upright on a trolley thing.

Yes it looks like that's where that's headed. Familiar b*llocks. 

So I guess same applies to any semi detached house and as you knew there was another house next door you just get whatever noise they feel like making , no matter how unreasonable....

To the OP, feel your pain. We bought a quiet house next to the quiet pub in the village we already lived in. Next few years, fine, then it changed hands and the ignorant and arrogant new owner lead us a life of misery until she was prosecuted for nuisance by the Local Authority. Tried talking to this stupid woman, waste of time.

My strong advice would still be speak again to the publican and 9 out of 10 will be sympathetic,  helpful and reasonable. 

The long route of formal action with Environmental Health ain't a place to head unless you really have no option.  Best of luck

It's once a week and 6am isn't really that early.

Anyway, you could always put your trousers on, have a cup of tea and think about leaving the house... 

Our bin men make a racket at 6.30am. So perhaps it is.

So why do bin men come round that early… ours always wake me. Why don’t they work normal hours, is there a good reason to start early ?

Thanks, all.

The landlord is a good guy - he was very quick to sort out the previous problem (which was staff sitting outside the pub till the small hours getting noisily drunk once the punters had all left).  He does often say he's very tied by the way the brewery wants him to do things, though.  If nothing else, then yeah, finding quieter ways for them to shift the kegs around would be a help.

I was hoping I could give him something he could take to the brewery to show them that actually, delivering at 6am is against some rule.  It seems odd to me that there is legislation that defines how to set up 'quiet deliveries' to take place outside 'normal hours' but I can't find what those 'normal hours' is!  I might have a quiet chat with the local councillors and see if they can suggest anything.  

I agree that taking it far as actual complaints against the brewery or by involving Environmental Health is likely to cause more aggravation than it solves...

nniff - the dog is a pretty special case.  She was badly abused before she came to us and is now a nervous wreck, with debilitating noise phobia.  She's making progress with quite a bit of medication.

Sigh... I knew someone would ask this. Yes, the pub was there when we bought.  We've never had a problem with anything that happens within pub hours - we fully expected to hear punter noise whilst it was open.  Indeed, I've pushed back pretty hard against members of the RMC who wanted to try to get the pub to stop holding music events in the evening, because that's what you ought to expect if you live near a pub.

But I do think 6am is a bit early!  I'm a night owl; no problem with working at midnight but I do like to sleep in a little.

Agreed. Given how much they block up roads (especially on narrow terraced streets) surely there is an, argument for them to only be allowed out after 10am once the rush hour traffic has cleared.

Edit - what really annoys me is the council grass cutters who usually start around 7am on a Sunday morning.

Or start even earlier, before the 'rush hour' starts…

Definitely have a look at your district or metropolitan council website. I got fed up with the contractors opposite starting noisy power tools at 7.30am to 8am then quiet jobs for the rest of the day but it turns out it's legal.

It was quite helpful to read in black and white what is, and isn't allowed.

Our binmen come at 7.30am as well.but it's only fortnightly. I've been in plenty of places in the EU where the binmen come round at 3am or crashing deliveries to bars take place at 5am. Perhaps we should be grateful we have some laws. 

Fair enough then. 

Just as a counter point to the others so triggered by my question. A local pub has had to stop live music (one of only two venues in the small town) and the beer garden is now off limits due to a very persistent new neighbour. The pub is centuries old and live music has been played there for generations, the locals are not happy. 

That's atrocious, and I've have fought tooth and nail against that.

Nothing compared to the complaints the farmers get after muck spreading or having the cheek to drive a farm vehicle on the road. 

Gentrification is far from, gentlemenly

I'm reminded of stories about churches having to silence centuries-old bells.

Can’t say for other councils, but mine changed hours, starting 6.30 am as part of a cost cutting exercise many years ago. Cut number of lorries, reduced staff accordingly, but extended the working day for those staff that remained albeit on a rota of early or late starts and with increased money. Also, made Saturday part of the working week on a rota.

Early collections are on an area rota, generally 6.45 am at mine when they do them, so it’s not a big problem overall for home occupiers. I have gritters in winter also and they are more of a problem as they come at all hours of the night depending on priorities. Not uncommon to be woken by the gritters at 1 to 4am.

Down side of the cost cutting exercise is there is little if any redundancy both with vehicles and staff. Any breakdowns, or staff shortages as seen with covid, means the collections can be anything up to 9 pm or in extreme cases up to 4 days after the day it should have been! A couple of times in last couple of years collections they have even been cancelled and rescheduled for 2-4 weeks later.
 

6am might not be that early to you. To me it's getting up time so no problem at all but for a lot of people 6am is very early. 

10pm is a late night for me. Times are very subjective for a lot of people. If I lived next door to a pub I would expect noise up to chucking out time but not first thing in the morning. 

To work when the streets are relatively quiet...?

This! 

Our issue with the pub was the music going on until 2am....its a small village and a small village pub. Since the loon that was prosecuted has gone, issues are minimal.  The empty bottle collection wagon arrives at 5am every Monday with a hell of a crash and smash as the bin tips out. Not really a problem though,  and a nice early alarm to start the week!!

There's a similar pub near Huddersfield, been there hundreds of years, popular with the locals, getting persistent complaints from the house next door that was built 5 years ago.

It's once a week though.
To me, that's a shrug of the shoulders and accept the fact that some people need to work at times that are inconvenient to you with regarding noise, etc.
 

Depends on the road really. Having had the endless traffic jams after a tractor driver has decided to bimble down the A12 I do think its swings and roundabouts sure its quicker for them but not for the several hundred people caught behind their rolling roadblock. That and the belief from some farmers that they dont actually have some responsibility for leaving the public road in a state that the public can actually use.

For the pub it would depend on when the time has been in the past. Having worked in pubs and dealt with deliveries the landlord would have had to come up with some serious overtime to have me there at 6am. Even though one of the pubs I worked in was a very dubious contender for the oldest pub (even by the low standards set) I would expect the locals to be annoyed at 6am noise as opposed to up to about midnightish (leaving aside the question about the change in hours)

For 12 years I've lived in a late 1500s fleapit flat conversion in the very centre and most oldest part of Stroud, just where the Shambles joins the Church to the High St.

Greggs is directly below, Costa directly across. Drunks holler and scream till 3, Costa restocks at 2, Greggs at 4.  Market (again, over 500 years old) sets up around 5 to 7 depending on the day, and that's that, the holler of the day has started.

And repeat, night after night. 

I dunno. Should I complain to the environment dept? 

Excellent satire, or would we not get on? 

There is no law governing noise per se.

However, if the time, frequency and impact are consider it may be a Statutory Nuisance under Environmental Protection Act.

Trade waste bin collection is a common complaint along these lines.

Contact Environmental Health at local council. 

You'll need to fill in a diary or use The Noise App as evidence to start with.

It would be worth trying to speak to brewery as well

Try checking with your Local Authority. Some LA's prohibit noisy works on building sites, and/or deliveries before a stated time - normally 8 am. But in your case you appear to enjoy good relations with the pub owner who is mindful of the problem and appears o be doing his best to mitigate it. He has a business to run, and you don't want to fall out with him, which might make him uncooperative. Also bear in mind that if you get into formal dispute with him or the brewery, it is something you would have to disclose to a potential purchaser if ever you wanted to sell. As others have said 6 am isn't that early, and it's only once a week.

Asking him to provide filled impact sacks to muffle the sound as suggested upthread is a good idea, and maybe go out when the draymen next arrive, offer them a cup of tea and have a chat with them. They might be more sympathetic if they know you as a friendly neighbour with a reasonable attitude rather than the unknown awkward guy next door?

I have just asked my wife who works on noise problems for the local environmental health department, this is not an uncommon problem.

There are no specific regulations that cover this but the local guidance is that it shouldn't happen before 7:00

They would speak to the brewery to discover if there was a reason why deliveries have to occur so early, if they can prove that this is the "best practical means" there isn't much that the council can do about it unless it could be proved that it was excessively noisy. In this case procedure could be implemented under the 1990 Environmental Protection Act.

My wife did say that the local council has never prosecuted anybody for this as far as she is aware. Personally I would suspect that this is as the noise is not persistent and only happens intermittently.

Correct.

Likewise it's my day job.... We have served Section 80 notices on this type of noise - but general a word with the company works. 

Working at 6am is normal hours mate

 6-1430 ...9/5 isnt normal

If it works for them that’s great…but I’d have thought working through rush hour would be a complete pain and the job would easier starting at 9:00.

And working through the evening rush hour better.........

Start early, stop for breakfast/lunch during morning rush hour and get finished before the afternoon one is the obvious way to do it.

Well better for my sleep 😀

Think yourself lucky, our bin men start at ~11pm and finish before 6am. They get to my house around 2 and my old house around 4. Quite easy to hear the truck for 15 minutes either side working a couple of roads away if you're awake.  The roads here are so narrow it would mean serious inconvenience if they worked in the day.

Ex-council worker here. There are two possible reasons.

1. In t'old days bin men worked by job and knock. Meaning as soon as their round was finished they could bugger off home. This meant early starts and workers going around like sprinters to finish their round early (Generally 2.00 pm)

2. This all changed around 5 or 6 years ago. When council cut backs reduced teams and took away job and knock. Now the bin men start early and walk to get halfway around the round they used to complete by 2.00 pm by close of day.