04 April 2025

Are children too noisy? In this week’s NLJ, Tricia Hemans and Daniel Black, Falcon Chambers, analyse a recent case on nuisance.
Dennis v Head Start Day Nursery is one of nuisance law’s quirkier cases, and sheds light on the development of this legal area post-Fearn v Tate, which concerned art gallery visitors taking an interest in the goings-on in nearby glass-walled flats.
The authors consider the following: ‘The issue of ordinary use was not explored in Head Start, the threshold test not having been met. Taking a foray into the hypothetical, one does wonder what the court might have made of that. If there were high levels of noise which objectively could amount to a substantial interference, would the use of the property as a nursery be considered ordinary?’RELATED ARTICLES