Our story…..

We are a family living on 5 acres in the beautiful semi-rural area of the Hills District of Sydney.

We have lived in our home for 18 years and have been affected many times by the use of recreational vehicles on surrounding properties.

Our situation became extremely bad in 2018 when our neighbour started riding multiple trail bikes, quad bikes and over-revving motor cars around the neighbouring 5 acre property and just 25 metres from our house.

The vehicles would be operated on weekdays and weekends sometimes for up to 10 hours in a day. The noise was extreme, invasive, and distressing to us and we could no longer enjoy our home and garden or make plans for our own lives. Our neighbours did not care how their noise was affecting us, in fact they cared so little that they and even rode their trail bikes for 4 hours on Christmas Day just 25 metres from our family lunch.

The NSW Noise Regulation (Clause 6) says that a vehicle operated off road must not be used in such a manner that it emits “offensive noise”. However none of the authorities would act. Our local council told us that “offensive noise is extremely difficult to prove” and the police were not interested and never attended because the noise was on private land.

We fought hard for 14 months to get our council to issue a Prevention Notice against our neighbour and they now have to limit the noise to a very low level. How we achieved it can be read on our blog which we wrote to help others understand their rights, the noise regulations and acceptable levels of noise. However it should not be so difficult to get the council or police to act particularly in the case of vehicles like trail bikes that are well-known to emit extremely high levels of noise with extremely unpleasant characteristics.

The inadequacies of the current noise regulations and their failure to protect people from excessive or irritating noise from vehicles used for recreation on private land were glaring. There are currently NO protections for residents in NSW other than to prove that the noise is “offensive”.

Our research lead us to find that other States, namely Victoria and Tasmania, have implemented legislation to protect their residents from noise from recreational vehicles on private land. These States recognise that trail bikes and other vehicles used for recreation have particularly loud and/or irritating characteristics that are highly likely to create unreasonable annoyance to those on neighbouring properties. This legislation includes keeping a 500m distance between vehicles and residences and requiring a permit to operate vehicles for recreation on private land. Permits are subject to the suitability of the location not to interfere with the comfort of neighbours and restrictions are placed on the use of the vehicles.

We know that there are others in NSW being negatively affected by noise from this activity and that this noise affects people’s right to enjoy and relax in their homes and that excessive or annoying noise is detrimental to their health and well-being. We know how difficult it is to get the council’s or police to act and that the current noise regulations are just not good enough.

We decided to do something about it by reaching out to those who are being subjected to the same inconsiderate behaviour.

We hope that by connecting with others who are negatively affected by this activity and by gathering their stories we can put in a strong submission to the Director of Policy and Reform at the NSW EPA and be successful in changing the NSW Noise Regulation to protect residents from this activity.

All NSW residents should have the right to live peacefully in their own homes and enjoy their properties without excessive, offensive or irritating noise.

Please support us by signing our petition, sharing your story with us, or contacting the NSW Environment Minister directly.

READ OUR BLOG SIGN OUR PETION SHARE YOUR STORY

CONTACT THE ENVIRONMENT MINISTER