BURY'S neighbours have been revealed as being among the quietest in Greater Manchester – despite initially being labelled as the noisiest.

New data released last week showed that the Bury borough had the most noise complaints per every 1,000 residents of anywhere across the conurbation in 2015.

However, eagle-eyed council officials spotted that the population figures used in table were for the town of Bury rather than the entire borough – which has a population of around 187,000 rather than the 55,800 used by noise monitoring experts Cirrus Research.

The amended figures show that Bury in fact has an average of around 3.5 complaints per 1,000, as opposed to 12.

Only three other boroughs – Bolton, Stockport, and Tameside – have a better score. Manchester was top of the noisy neighbour poll, with seven complaints for every 1,000 people.

Cllr Alan Quinn, cabinet member for the environment, said: "We’ve known all along that Bury is popular, so we’re naturally delighted that our official population has gone up from 55,000 to its real level of 187,000!

"We’re also pleased that the number of noise complaints is actually near the bottom of the Greater Manchester league rather than at the top, which again indicates that our borough is a pleasant place in which to live.

"Seriously, though, while some complaints turn out to be relatively minor one-off events, persistent irresponsible behaviour by some residents and businesses can have a real and detrimental effect on people’s quality of life.

"We would advise all residents and businesses to respect each other’s quality of life and keep the noise down. The council will try to resolve noise problems informally but does have legal powers to act where a statutory noise nuisance is identified. Individuals can also take their own action through the magistrates court.

"For more information about noise nuisance, how to resolve it yourself, and how to report a problem if you can’t, go to our website at bury.gov.uk."

The most common complaints in Bury were about barking dogs, loud music, and commercial noise.

Thomas Shelton, Cirrus Research marketing manager, said: "We work with many local authorities and housing associations which have to deal with the complaints daily about noise nuisance.

"They have to a duty to investigate each allegation, see if there is any substance, gather evidence and then take action. What one person thinks is acceptable could drive someone else crazy so noise enforcement teams have a difficult job at the best of times.

"We conducted our research based on complaints per 1,000 population to get a more accurate result and the overall picture is pretty stable across Greater Manchester with, on average, 3-5 complaints per 1,000 across most of the districts."

The total number of complaints for the whole of the North West came in at 39,960 for 2015. Greater Manchester local authorities accounted jointly for 11,222 of those, or 28 per cent of the total.