Noise nuisance - burglar alarms
What we can do about them
Under the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 Local Authorities are given an option to adopt a ‘key holder notification area’. The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham has not adopted this part of the Act and therefore does not hold key holder details.
However, in the event that an alarm does misfire we will be accessing the ‘London Key holder Database’ run by Dial Media.
The London Key holder Database is a secure system that instantly provides relevant key holder information to the Council when dealing with an incident at your property, such as, noise nuisance from your premise alarm.
All the information is kept securely and only made available to authorised personnel within the Council. The London Key holder Database is provided by a private company for which there is annual charge and details of the cost can be found on their web site. If you would like to register your key holders click the following link, or the image below: www.london.keyholderdatabase.org.uk (opens new window).
Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, the Council has powers to deal with noise nuisances from audible intruder alarms, and in the case of unoccupied premises, this can include forced entry of the premises to disable the alarm.
It is far better for us to contact a nominated key holder who can open the premises and disable and/or reset the alarm. If you have an intruder alarm installed, you are required by law:
- To ensure that it meets BS 4737 for the installation, operation and maintenance of the alarm.
- To ensure the alarm has a 20 minute cut-off device fitted.
We endeavour to contact any listed key holders or the owners/occupiers of the premises.
However, if after one hour an alarm is still sounding and the owner or occupier has not been found, the law allows us to deactivate the alarm. If we enter your property we will gain a warrant of entry from a magistrate. We take every care not to cause damage and use specialist companies contracted to us to open doors.
Occasionally it will not necessary to enter a property, we may be able to silence the alarm from the outside.
After entering a property we will ensure that it is left secure. If locks are damaged we will replace the damaged locks of equal or better quality. Whenever we enter a property and leave it secured we leave a notice inside to inform the owner or occupier a copy of the warrant.
The Police are informed of the action we take so that owners or occupiers who return to their properties to find that we have silenced the alarm can immediately be informed of the action and the reason for it.
The council is able to recover the costs incurred in silencing the alarm.
Page last updated: 06/07/2010
