Night Building Curbs Urged After Daily Complaints

Students, workers and elderly residents are losing sleep to late-night building work, leading to calls for strict limits on when contractors can use noisy machinery.

Abdulla Abdul Latif, chairman of the Southern Municipal Council, told The Daily Tribune that complaints over night-time construction noise reach him daily. He said builders who break the rules should face proposed fines of up to BD5,000.

He named Blocks 914 and 934 among areas where residents have complained and proposed limiting noisy work in housing areas to 6 a.m. to noon and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

‘Every day I receive complaints,’ Mr Abdul Latif said. ‘Students and employees need to sleep, and this affects the quality of their work.’

He said drilling, breaking concrete, heavy machinery use, and roadworks late at night leave families struggling to rest.

Some asphalting is carried out around 1am to avoid traffic, he said, but the noise from machinery can still carry into nearby homes.

Mr Abdul Latif said the strain is especially hard on older people, patients and workers returning home tired after night shifts.

He wants construction permits to specify exactly when work can take place, with separate hours where needed during the summer and the same rules applied by every municipality.

Those who break the rules should face a proposed BD5,000 fine, he said.

Municipal inspectors should also be able to place a violation sticker on a site and record the building number as being in breach. Permit suspension should be available for serious or repeated cases.

‘Stopping the licence is the solution,’ he said.

Mr Abdul Latif argued that much of the change could be made through a ministerial decision rather than waiting for Parliament to pass a new law.

He said working hours could become another condition attached to a building permit, much like rules requiring sites to be fenced before work starts.

He also called for municipalities to have clear power to decide when building, demolition, digging and other noisy work must stop in housing areas.

Some road, utility and emergency jobs will still need to be carried out at night, he said, but those cases should require prior permission and clear limits.

‘The aim is not to stop construction, but to regulate it,’ Mr Abdul Latif said. ‘The contractor has the right to finish his project, the worker has rights, and the citizen has a basic right to rest and sleep inside his home.’

Residents can send complaints and written requests to the municipal council, which can pass them to the complaints and inspection section for follow-up, he added.