Most residential dust complaints we receive relate to building work at a neighbouring property.
Dust is only classed as a nuisance when:
- it unreasonably and substantially interferes with the use or enjoyment of your home or other premises
- it is injurious to your health or likely to injure your health
Talk to the person or business responsible for the dust
Try to discuss your concerns with the person or business responsible for the dust, if you feel comfortable doing so. They might not be aware that they are causing a problem. Explain to them how the situation is affecting you and ask them to control it.
If the cause of the dust cannot be stopped, there are various ways to control it. One is to use water-suppression or ‘misting’ on cutting and drilling tools, to make the dust damp and heavy. Some tools can also be fitted with vacuums to collect the dust.
The government provides more information about resolving neighbour disputes and raising concerns.
Report dust issues
If talking to the person responsible for the dust is not possible or does not work, report it to us.
We will investigate complaints about any issue that could be a statutory nuisance.
We cannot take action about natural dust such as pollen, windborne soil or Saharan dust. We also cannot investigate dust that is not causing a statutory nuisance or is not prejudicial to health, such as dust that is making your car dirty.
Read construction sites if you want to complain about dust caused by large-scale building or demolition work.
Next steps
We will first try to resolve your concerns informally by providing advice and information.
If the problem persists and where we agree that the dust is a statutory nuisance, we will serve an abatement notice to prevent it continuing. We will serve the notice under Section 80 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
Sometimes it is not obvious where a deposit of dust has come from. In this case, we will normally ask you to help us trace the source by keeping a record of the dust deposits along with the wind direction each day.
