Auckland Council turns a deaf ear to New Year's Eve noise complaints

Upset about the neighbour's party? That's too bad. Photo / 123rf

Neighbours getting too rowdy celebrating the new year? Too bad.

Auckland Council has given Aucklanders license to party as loudly as they want as they enter 2019.

The council has said it will not be attending any party noise complaints between 6pm on December 31, 2018 and 2am on January 1, 2019.

According to the council, Aucklanders are usually well behaved during this period and there is never a particular spike in noise complaints.

"New Year's Eve is always a great time for celebration in Auckland and from a noise control perspective we don't tend to see significant increases in complaints over the course of the night generally because there seems to be higher levels of tolerance to noise as many people choose to stay up later to enjoy the midnight entertainment," Max Wilde, the council's team manager for Licencing Response told the Herald.

"Because of this, we do relax our policy slightly on New Year's Eve and only attend complaints after 2am which is often the time when most festivities have come to an end.

"That said, if members of the community do have significant concerns about noise, they are welcome to call us on 09 301 0101 to lodge their complaints however we will be unable to attend until after 2am. We are certainly not turning a deaf ear to complaints, it is more about ensuring that everyone who wishes to enjoy the festivities has the opportunity to do so up to a suitable time."

Noise complaints can be made after 2am on the first day of the year by calling 09 301 0101.

Complaints can not be made after the noise has stopped, only while it is happening, as the council goes out to investigate.

There are a number of rules around noise that you need to keep in mind before making a complaint, including the time of the day and the type of noise.

For more information on how to make a noise complaint, visit the Auckland council website.