The Environmental Protection Act 1990, Part III requires local authorities like us to investigate complaints of noise nuisance and requires that we serve noise abatement notices where they find statutory nuisances. Intruder alarm could cause such a nuisance.  

The Act also allows private individuals to take action through a magistrates court.

Non-compliance with a noise abatement notice served by us or an order made by a court may result in a fine of up to £5,000 for residential premises or £20,000 for commercial.

In addition, we can also carry out works to abate the nuisance and recover the costs of those works from the person responsible.

Part 7 of The Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 states that we may enter the premises for the purpose of silencing the alarm if :

  • the alarm has been sounding continuously for more than twenty minutes or intermittently for more than one hour;
  • the sounding of the alarm is likely to give persons living or working in the vicinity of the premises reasonable cause for annoyance;

We also strongly recommend having two or more alarm key-holders. 

Notification to the police is achieved via the Devon and Cornwall Police Keyholder Scheme.

The key-holders should be well versed in operating and silencing the alarm, be telephone subscribers and be able to get to your property relatively quickly. 

Please note: We don't keep a database of key-holders for use when following up complaints of alarms sounding, but we will contact the police to check if there is a key-holder registered when we receive complaints about audible intruder alarms.