Wolverhampton Council will no longer respond to weekend noise complaints - due to cuts

Staff will now only respond if a person's health or well-being is at 'serious imminent risk'.

Services boss Councillor John Reynolds said: "We fully understand the misery caused by excessive noise and the council will continue to investigate and take action against the selfish people who cause a nuisance in this way.

"Demand for this service has been falling, it is not a statutory service and, at a time when budgets are being so severely reduced, we have to focus our resources on the services that the law says we must."

The regulatory services department, which deals with the calls, has to reduce its spending by £900,000 over 2013/14 and 2014/15. The loss of weekend services will save £100,000 a year.

Councillor Reynolds added: "The only service that's stopped is the immediate response to noise complaints at weekends, which generally could not solve the issue anyway as formal action against noise usually requires a body of evidence to be gathered over more than one incident.

"These changes will not affect emergencies when the police or other agencies require the attendance of environmental health officers to deal with noise issues out of hours.

"We will of course continue to investigate and where appropriate take action against complaints which can include advising tenants on how to collect relevant information, serving statutory notices and seizing noise-causing equipment.

"These changes will not affect emergencies when the police or other agencies require the attendance of environmental health officers to deal with noise issues out of hours."

Environmental Health officers receive about 3,200 noise complaints every year, including domestic, dog, commercial and industrial complaints.

On average, 1,200 of these were out of normal office hours and about 1,000 related to domestic noise, such a DIY and television noise.

A domestic noise complaint is estimated to cost between £75 to £100 to investigate.

Of the complaints and requests for the service made, 94 per cent were responded to within a five-day target.

Government funding has been reduced significantly leaving the city council having to save £123 million over five years.

The council is having to axe about 2,000 jobs to help make savings – this is the equivalent to about a third of its workforce outside of schools.