Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

Noise is a pervasive form of environmental pollution that affects people at work, at home and in their neighborhoods. The measures adopted by the English legal system for the control of neighborhood noise provide a useful case study in the techniques available to the state in implementing policy, and the problems in ensuring the effective fulfillment of policy objectives. This paper serves a dual purpose in giving information about the measures taken to deal with the noise problem in Britain and the obstacles to successful solution of the problem and in illustrating in more general terms the methods of policy implementation available to the state in a capitalist society.

Neighborhood noise is a growing source of complaint by members of the public. The number of complaints of domestic noise addressed to the Environmental Health Officers has increased in the last ten years from 150 to 1276 complaints per million of the population per annum. This contrasts with the level of complaints about roadwork, construction and demolition work which is fairly stable at 103 per million; and industrial and commercial noise complaints, which have risen from about 350 per million in 1975 to 601 per million in 1986.1 The increase reflects a combination of an actual increase in noise levels and an increased susceptibility to and awareness of noise by members of the public.

Typical sources of neighborhood noise include traffic, which has become a major problem in the last twenty-five years because of the growth in car ownership and the increased use of road transport for the delivery of goods; manufacturing; road works; domestic appliances; radios, televisions and other forms of sound reproduction; parties, especially late at night; and voices, such as those of public house patrons late at night or children at play.

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