Council criticised after noisy gym misery

WATCHDOGS have ordered South Gloucestershire Council to apologise to a woman who suffered mental health problems from a noisy gym beneath her flat because of a planning blunder.

The Local Government Ombudsman upheld her complaint and ruled the authority failed to properly consider the potential impact of noise and vibration on neighbouring homes when it approved the fitness centre’s planning application.

It has told the council to pay her £200 compensation, investigate if the levels of disturbance amount to a “statutory nuisance”, which could lead to an abatement notice, and produce an acoustic report to come up with a way of reducing the problems for residents.

The council accepted the findings. It said it followed procedures in place at the time but had “acted quickly” to amend them when the issue was raised, while it is also exploring what steps may be needed to solve the issue.

The woman suffered “unacceptable levels of noise and vibration from music, shouting, dropping weights and other noises ... harming her mental health”.

South Gloucestershire Council had previously granted permission for a smaller gym at a former shop beneath apartments in a local neighbourhood centre but a new application sought to increase its size by more than half and added a mezzanine floor.

The ombudsman’s ruling, which does not name the complainant or the location, said the planning case officer’s report did not include an assessment of the impact of the size and scale of the larger gym.