So You've Moved in Next to a Noisy Venue. What Now?

Even prior to COVID, the UK’s nightlife industry was in trouble, with huge numbers of venues shutting down across the country – not just in cities with hyper-charged property markets like Manchester and London – and noise complaints were often cited as an instigating factor. Things got so bad that, in 2018, the government introduced a bill aimed at protecting venues from noise complaints. However, venues could only be eligible for help if they hadn’t received any prior noise complaints. As a result, many were excluded.

If a noisy venue opens up next door to your flat, you’ve every right to be annoyed by that. But choosing to move into an area is a kind of social contract. It means, within reason, taking it as you find it and not trying to mould the environment to suit your whims. So if you’re looking for a guide on “how to be a snitch”, you should look elsewhere.

In some cases, though, you may find yourself living next to a venue through no fault of your own and with no power to change your circumstances. Here are some practical solutions to deal with the problem which don’t involve grassing to the council and enabling the destruction of the UK’s already vulnerable nightlife industry.

Sorry if this is “victim blaming”, but if you willingly choose to move next door to a venue, only to find yourself enraged by the fact that it’s noisy, that’s kind of a you problem. It’s just not reasonable to move into a city centre – or any area known for its nightlife – and expect it to be quiet. Nightlife has to happen somewhere.

Ioan Roberts, owner of Liverpool venue 24 Kitchen Street, has experienced considerable problems with noise complaints from property developers, even though the properties involved currently stand empty. “If you’re moving into a city centre, you’re moving somewhere where there’s multiple different people who have a space in that place,” he says. “You don’t own the neighbourhood, you’re just part of it.”

24 Kitchen Street is situated in the Baltic Triangle, an area largely comprising repurposed former warehouses which had few existing residents. The venues really were there first.

Allan Scorer is the owner of Little Buildings, a music venue in Newcastle’s Ouseburn Valley, a district of canals and warehouses sitting beneath an imposing Victorian viaduct, and has also experienced problems with noise complaints. “When we opened,” he says, “the majority of the residents came around and said, ‘Great, good on you - that’s what we moved here for,’ but there were a few people who objected outright.”

As with the Baltic Triangle, few people were living in Ouseburn Valley prior to its regeneration. “You move to these places because you want to be part of the culture, you want to be part of something,” says Scorer. “When people complained, even the environmental health people said, ‘Why would you move here if you knew?’”

Plenty of people manage to live alongside venues without it being a problem. Jack lived in a flat in Brighton next door to a gay bar and ended up feeling “quite fond” of the noise. “Don’t move next to a pub if you’re going to hate it,” he says. “Try to remember that the venue was likely there first, and if you choose to live in the middle of a city, it won’t be like rural Berkshire at night.”

It’s your responsibility to do your research before buying a property or signing a lease. If noise is going to be a problem, look for a property somewhere quieter. Given that areas with good nightlife and culture are usually more expensive, this could well turn out to be cheaper. If you’ve already moved in and it’s become an issue, the honourable thing would be to move somewhere else, rather than campaigning to have a venue shut down and impoverishing the public sphere for everyone else.

This is as much about mind-set as anything, but living next to a venue doesn’t have to be a bad thing. You can embrace it, make it your local.

In his second year of university, Andrew found himself living next door to a club in London, and made the most of this by attending nights there regularly. “It’s a case of recognising that we have all been – and all will be – that person making a racket in the smoking area at some point,” he says, “and we shouldn’t get mad at those just trying to enjoy themselves. I really loved that venue and had some great times there.”

If you find yourself living next to a noisy venue and are unable or unwilling to move, there are some practical steps you can take to sound-proof your home from within.

That said, it depends on the scale of the venue. Kieran Dymond, regional project manager of Hush Soundproofing, says that implementing acoustic walls and extra glazing is usually enough to insulate your flat from low-level noise from bars, restaurants, pubs or venues focused on acoustic music. If you own your own place and have a couple of grand kicking about, this could be a decent solution.

It’s unlikely, however, that you’ll be able to keep out the noise from clubs, which typically produce a more vibrational noise (apparently drum and bass is the hardest genre to deal with). “If you live next to a massive club,” he says, “you’re probably not going to be able to do the job at your side, and you’d need to approach them.”

If you’re a tenant, and are experiencing more low-level sound problems, you could ask your landlord to pay for the insulation. As a result of the Homes (Fitness for Habitation) Act of 2019, landlords are legally obliged to provide homes with the means to cope with anything that can cause “serious harm”.

At a push, you could argue noise pollution falls under this category, but one housing advisor I spoke to said there’s little precedent for this being successful. In any case, the kind of extreme noise your landlord could – theoretically – be compelled to sort out is unlikely to be treatable at your end.

All of the venue owners I spoke to said that contacting them directly if you have a problem would be better for everyone involved than going to the council.

This is more likely to sort out any problems in the short-term. If you contact the council, you might receive a letter in a month’s time, whereas if you contact the venue and ask them to turn it down, there’s a decent chance they’ll do this immediately.

“Sometimes existing residents will message us, and generally we will turn the music down on a given night,” says Ioan. “We will respond much quicker to people who are contacting us rather than going through official channels. If someone calls our phone number, we’ll look at turning the volume down on the spot.”

Arguably, the problem is caused above all by property developers and the councils who enable them. Residents and venues working together is the best way to fix the problem.

@jamesdgreig