It seems common sense has prevailed after parents at a Perth southern suburbs primary school lashed out at their local council for banning school assemblies at its church hall following a noise complaint from a local resident.
St Jerome's Primary School in Munster is a catholic school, with students using the church adjoining its grounds for assemblies and other school activities.
But due to persistent complaints from one resident on an adjoining street, Hamelin Drive, the City of Cockburn has banned the use of microphones and amplifiers at the hall.
The school's principal, Helen O'Toole, was forced to send a letter to parents explaining the ban, telling them assemblies would be relocated to an undercover area, Radio 6PR reported on Wednesday.
"The parish was alerted to issues around supposed excessive noise from Friday evening and Saturday night events in late 2015," the letter read.
"This one neighbour also complained that the school's assembly music and microphone was too loud.
"As a result of this complaint, the school tried to keep all doors shut at assembly times."
The sole complainant, who Ms O'Toole claimed refused to meet with the school, requested the council conduct a noise review of the area.
Officers found it exceeded noise level limits on four occasions between 2pm and 10pm.
The parish has since been banned from using microphones and amplifiers in the hall, which has impacted the school's assemblies.
"We did remind council officers that the hall was there well before these houses were built only five metres away from the hall," Ms O'Toole said.
For noise levels to be acceptable, the parish and school would need to carry out major acoustic modifications on the hall.
Rita, a parent of a student at the school said the decision had left 400 families "ropeable".
"Something severely has gone wrong down there, our little hall is all you can imagine, it's all on the one block of land there, we're all there as a school community together with our parish," she told Radio 6PR.
"That hall has actually been there before the houses were there... the hall was there first.
"We're not holding kids' concerts down there... our kids go in there, they sing their daily prayers, they do their dancing in there."
City of Cockburn mayor Logan Howlett had earlier told Radio 6PR his council was looking into the decision, saying schools were usually exempt from noise regulations, but because St Jerome's hall was technically on neighbouring land, it was not included.
He has since commented on the issue again to confirm the council had rang St Jerome's on Wednesday to let them know they can continue to use the hall, despite earlier meetings between the school and council leaving the school under the impression it couldn't.
"[The council] informed the parish council that the decibel levels had been exceeded by particular users, but the city has never advised the school that it could not use the parish hall," Mr Howlett said.
"Our director of planning and development has advised the school, or is in the process of advising the school, that the school community can continue to use the parish hall and that we are in discussions with the Department of Environmental Regulation about the particular interpretation of the legislation.
"One would expect that common sense would prevail."
