The late Victorian church hall had been converted to a church when the existing church was demolished in the 1990s. Its outdated facilities included male toilets on the north side, and female toilets on the south side. The petitioners proposed to convert the female toilets to unisex facilities, and the male toilets to an office. Neighbours, who shared a party wall with the female toilets, objected on the grounds that the existing noise and percussive nuisance arising through the use of the facilities, which was already significant, would increase with increased use; and urged that the reconfiguration should be inverted to move the facilities to the north side, away from the party wall. The petitioners responded, indicating that although the use of the facilities might increase (albeit within the same operating times), the new facilities would be quieter; and offered to include additional soundproofing.

The court determined that it was no part of the function of the consistory court to adjudicate on complaints of nuisance to adjoining land; that was a matter for the civil courts. By the same token, the grant of a faculty merely rendered the carrying out of the permitted works immune from challenge under ecclesiastical law, or (in the case of a listed building) from challenge for want of listed building consent. It did not render the permitted works immune from challenge in the civil courts; just as the grant of planning permission could not render works immune from challenge under the law of nuisance.

A faculty would be granted, with permission for the petitioners to reverse the locations of the new facilities and the new office; and if this was not practicable, to use reasonable endeavours to introduce acoustic insulation.