complaints against illegal works or to respond in a timely manner to the requests for information submitted by individuals. With regard to complaints about social housing, a substantial gap was found to exist between the number of houses available and the number of residences in need, as demand greatly exceeds supply. Environment and natural resources The Ombudsman also investigated complaints about environment and natural resources, nature conservation, air quality and the preservation of water resources. Two thirds (168) of the total complaints about the environment and natural resources were about noise pollution. Although their origin may be the result of public or private initiative activities, noise always implies substantial harm to people’s health, well-being and quality of life. This serious problem is also related to the land-use planning and is most obvious in urban areas, because of leisure activities, namely nightlife establishments and the promotion of spectacles, fairs, cultural activities and others noisy events. In this field, the Ombudsman’s work aims at improving the powers of noise control, and it is often suggested that specific constraints be set in the special municipal noise licenses granted to festival promoters. Land-use planning Several complaints relating to land-use planning were also investigated, in particular regarding territorial management tools and special territorial schemes, environmental impact assessment, public construction works, public domain, expropriations and administrative easements. In 2016, more than half of the complaints on this matter (168 out of 246) were related to infrastructure problems, in particular road-infrastructures, equipment and urban traffic in public domain. A significant number of complaints was also received by the Ombudsman requesting intervention before the supervision bodies responsible for the management of the roads, due to road accidents caused by obstacles which unexpectedly appear in highways under concession or in municipal roads or as the result of pavement defects. In view of the accidents occurring in municipal roads, the municipalities consider that the generic fulfillment of duties is enough to exonerating themselves from the enforcement of non-contractual liability regime. However, in case of the occurrence of an accident on a concessionaire highway, the reversal of the burden of proof is established by law. 34 |