Would it come as a shock to you if we said that Manchester has earned itself a place in the top 10 for towns with the “noisiest neighbours” in the UK?
Is it a title us unspoken Mancunians would wear with pride?
According to new Freedom of Information data obtained by leading insurance comparison website, Confused.com – which looked at how many noise complaints were made in the top 100 most populated places in the country – more than a quarter of a million noise complaints were made to UK councils last year, and Manchester lands at number six on the top 10 list of places where those complaints were lodged, with 6,274 complaints made in total and a rate of 276 complaints per 10,000 households in the region.
The city was beaten to a top five spot by Cambridge, Portsmouth, Bath, Southampton, and probably unsurprisingly coming in at number one, London.
Perhaps more shockingly though is that Manchester was also joined in the top 10 by Stockport.
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The Greater Manchester borough town ranks at number eight on the list, with 253 complaints per 10,000 households.
The UK’s Noisiest Neighbours
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London (158,958)
Southampton (5,147)
Bath (3,288)
Portsmouth (3,490)
Cambridge (1,693)
Manchester (6,274)
Oxford (1,521)
Stockport (3,282)
Luton (2,003)
Brighton (3,182)
The research also revealed that of the some 250,000 noise complaints lodged across the UK within the last year, of those who did complain, more than half (52%) went directly to their neighbour to resolve the issue, 49% got in touch with their local council, and a third (33%) even went as far as reporting their neighbour to the police.
Researchers at Confused.com also conducted a survey of 2,000 Brits to find out what people think about their neighbours and what they are likely to complain about.
The largest source of noise pollution as voted by survey participants was loud music at 50%.
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This was followed by loud parties (43%), raised voices / shouting (29%), barking dogs / excessive animal noise (24%), and television noise (21%).
How about on the other end of the spectrum though?
Well, when it comes to the towns with the quietest neighbours, the sleepy Gloucestershire town of Cheltenham took the top spot, shortly followed by Solihull in second place, and then rounding out the top three is another Greater Manchester representative – Oldham.
There were 615 complaints of noise in Oldham, a rate of just 67 per 10,000 households.
Speaking on the research findings, Jessica Willock – Home Insurance Expert at Confused.com – said: “It’s no fun living in a noisy neighbourhood, and it seems some areas across the UK are a lot worse for noise pollution than others.
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“And living with noisy neighbours can be really difficult to handle without creating tension.
“More often than not, a friendly conversation goes a long way, but when that fails, where to turn to next can be confusing [which is why] we’ve created a guide to understanding basic neighbour etiquette, including how best to handle noisy situations.
“While calling the police might seem like the best route to take, you should in fact be getting in touch with your local council”.
The player celebrations from Stockport County’s League Two trophy presentation are glorious
Danny Jones
If you’re a Stockport County fan, you’ve had a very good year as the Hatters have just been crowned League Two champions and will be back in the English third tier next season – safe to say they’ve been making most of the trophy celebrations.
Players and staff very much included.
Edgeley was filled with flares and even people climbing on rooftops when they officially secured promotion back to League One for the first time in 12 years – the second time they’ve managed to go up in three seasons – and there was a great attendance in Stockport town centre for the bus parade.
But it was last week’s trophy presentation back at the stadium that produced some of the most memorable scenes, with County topping off a season of impressive and often high-scoring performances on the pitch with plenty more pageantry. Cue the music.
We still haven’t stopped laughing at Kyle Knoyle.
From bringing Isaac Olaofe’s ‘Tanto’s on fire!’ chant to life to hammering home puns on names like Fraser Horsfall, no matter how obvious, these are the kind of deeply unserious celebrations we expect from a trophy presentation.
County fan or not, you’ve got to admit it looks like a good party.
It’s moments like these that players, fans and staff work hard all season for; to prat around like muppets in front of their adoring supporters. They even got assistant coach, Clint Hill, in the mix and, as it turns out, he proved to be one of the biggest ring-leaders.
We sincerely hope the Hatters keep trickling out more of these party scenes as we know there’s plenty more that fans would love to watch back.
We’re still yet to see captain Paddy Madden, who won Player of the Month for April, and the gaffer himself, Dave Challinor, who has comfortably secured his legacy as one of the club’s all-time greats.
Challinor and the club have made no secret of seriously eyeing up the Championship and who knows what else at County’s momentum continues to build, especially with a huge stadium redevelopment kicking off soon.
What do you reckon, Hatters – do you reckon a third promotion could be on the cards?
Liam Gallagher says he’ll ‘gig in Lidl’ if Co-op Live still isn’t ready – and they sound pretty game for it
Danny Jones
Following the ongoing palaver with Co-op Live, Liam Gallagher has joked that he’d happily play his scheduled gigs in a Lidl if the arena still isn’t ready – at least we think he’s joking…
With Liam Gallagher having been named as one of the first acts booked to play Co-op Live last year, many are now wondering whether the venue will even by June, with the former Oasis frontman set to play four Definitely Maybe 30th-anniversary sets. That being said, he’s come up with a solution if not.
Vintage LG, we’ll give him that.
Obviously a bit of a tongue-in-cheek quip at the venue being sponsored by a supermarket and convenience store chain, it could have been any other competitor that the ever-witty youngest Gallagher brother picked but it somehow made it extra funny that he chose a budget brand like Lidl.
However, with the 51-year-old already having fun with stunts like voicing the tannoys on the Metrolink last year, for instance, we wouldn’t put it past him to take this joke a little further.
Better still, not that we’re getting carried away or anything but Lidl themselves seem pretty keen on the idea too; they even spent the time to build an entire setlist for the fictional show. Fair play.
Can you imagine? Liam Gallagher swapping the occasional tambourine shake for beeps from a barcode scanner as he moves back and forth on the conveyor belt. We know it’s absolute nonsense and we definitely shouldn’t be even remotely considering it… BUT it’s the stuff of dreams and strange things have happened.
A lot of stranger things have happened this week alone. As for the latest with Co-op Live, the Chairman and CEO of key-backers Oak View Group, Tim Leiweke, issued a full statement sharing his “sincere apologies”and insisting that they understand “there is work to be done to rebuild your trust in us.”
With the likes of Olivia Rodrigo, Peter Kay, The Black Keys and more having their gigs pulled by the venue due to numerous issues, including an air conditioning unit falling from the ceiling, fans are understandably fearful that other upcoming events could face delays or general misfortune.
Much like the venue itself, we imagine we’ll be playing catch-up on this whole saga for the foreseeable, but here’s a recap of the story so far: