BOLTON council received 761 noise complaints last year — for everything from loud music to a report of a shooting.

The highest number of complaints came regarding barking dogs, with 201 reports received from the council.

Human beings were not far behind their canine comrades, with 165 different noise complaints coming in for apparent “people noise”.

Music fans were also the scourge of their neighbours, with 173 separate reports of tunes being played too loudly.

The figures were revealed thanks to a freedom of information request and released under the environmental information regulations.

Perhaps the most mysterious report came on March 20 with a noise complaint listed for an apparent “shooting”, unfortunately no address information was recorded with the report.

In The Bolton News office, tired reporters can regularly be heard complaining about being kept awake by seemingly endless alarms going off through the night and it was the same for Bolton people in 2014 — with 50 separate complaints received by the council for alarms, which refers to burglar alarms, fire alarms or car alarms.

Another major bugbear of the sleep-deprived is being woken up by noisy machinery in houses such as fans and boilers and 48 similar complaints came in to the council last year.

Bolton’s party-loving fraternity were the cause of eight complaints through the year and there were 2 reports regarding noise from fireworks, although both of these did not come on November 5, the traditional day that fireworks are set off, they were instead registered in October.

Other complaints were received for public address systems (3), construction equipment (21), televisions and radios (7), vehicle noise (23), DIY noise (8), other animals and birds (15) and low frequency noise (1), with a number of other unidentified reports recorded.

A spokesman for Bolton Council said that the authority encourages people to attempt to solve their noise-related issues before making a complaing.

He said: “Complaints about noise are common but can often be remedied before the council becomes involved.

“If problems arise we advise residents to talk to the person responsible for the noise first and try to resolve the issues amicably before making a complaint to the council, as often people are unaware that they are causing a disturbance.

“If this approach does not solve the problem, residents can register a complaint with us and we will ask them to fill in a noise diary, and investigations will be made.

“Investigations can result in the council serving an abatement notice to prohibit the recurrence of noise disturbance, and if this isn’t adhered to, could lead to prosecution.”