Neighbourhood noise / report by the Working Group on the Noise Abatement Act.

  • Great Britain. Working Group on the Noise Abatement Act.
Date:
1971
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Neighbourhood noise / report by the Working Group on the Noise Abatement Act. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    then be able to insist that adequate steps be taken to ensure that it is operated as quietly as possible and that the additional noise it will create outside the factory is reduced to a minimum. 19. There should also be an obligation on firms to give prior notice to the local authority of any change in their hours of operation which could raise the noise emitted from their premises to such a level, or so alter or extend the hours during which noise is emitted as to have an adverse effect on the noise climate of the area. For example, more intensive operation of the machinery might increase the volume of noise during the day or the introduction of a night shift might create noise at a time when the factory has previously been closed. The local authority should be empowered in these circumstances to impose conditions to safeguard residents in the area. 20. The reduction of traffic noise presents more difficult problems and to achieve this would require some alterations to the road pattern of an area. The aim should be to stop the flow of through traffic in a residential area and where possible to create pedestrian precincts. To do this successfully would mean a careful study of the road pattern and traffic movement to avoid action which would merely divert traffic from one residential road to another of a similar type. To encourage local authorities to incur the expense which would be involved the Government might offer grants towards the cost of the necessary work. 21. It is also envisaged that in some areas it would be possible to place restrictions on traffic. For example, heavy lorries might be banned from using particular roads either completely or during the night. If any kind of controls are to be exercised over traffic in a noise control area, road signs would be needed to warn road users that they were entering such an area. 22. The legislation which would be required to enable local authorities to declare noise control areas should be permissive and should not place an obligation directly on local authorities to use the new powers. The Secretary of State for the Environment, however, should be empowered to impose a duty on individual local authorities to implement their noise control area powers. It is not envisaged that the exercise of these powers should be made mandatory until some experience has been gained of noise control areas. General Powers of Local Authorities 23. The scheme which has been been outlined in the preceding paragraphs for the creation of noise control areas must be considered in conjunction with the Association’s view for the strengthening of the general powers of local authorities to deal with excessive noise. The existing nuisance procedure is cumbersome and protracted and the law, therefore, needs to be revised. It should still be possible to deal with noise as a statutory nuisance, with some modification of the present law, but in addition local authorities will require further powers if they are to control noise effectively. 24. There would be considerable value in the development by the British Stan- dards Institution of standards for new machines which would limit their noise output and for the suppression of noise from existing machines. Eventually it should be an offence to sell or operate a machine which does not comply with the appropriate British Standard and to import such a machine. 25. The preparation and introduction of standards of this kind would obviously take a long time to achieve. In the meantime, manufacturers of machinery should be encouraged to design their products so as to make them capable
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