Flemmich Webb 

Sound the alarm

There is growing evidence that noise pollution is not only a nuisance but also can have a serious effect on people's health.
  
  


I t's 11.30pm and I'm getting ready to break into a bank. A former bank, actually, in Clerkenwell, London. It now stands empty and I'm standing outside with Marios Petrou, manager of the London borough of Islington's night-time noise team, and a locksmith preparing to gain legal entry into the building to turn off a burglar alarm that's been ringing for 24 hours. Within 10 seconds, the lock has been removed and the alarm switched off. Petrou gets a thumbs up from a resident across the street, but this is all in a night's work for the team that helps to tackle noise issues in the borough seven days a week.

"The number of calls varies," he says, "but on a Friday or Saturday night we can get up to 50 or 60 calls." And the number is on the increase.

Islington is not alone in seeing a rise in calls to its noise team. During July, the noise team in Cardiff saw complaints double compared to the same period in 2005 - in Luton complaints were up by 64%.

This is partly due to more people being outside when it's hot and the increased and more effective provision by councils of noise abatement services, but it also signifies society's growing problem of noise disturbance. An Ipsos Mori poll, carried out earlier this year for the National Society for Clean Air and Environmental Protection (NSCA), found that almost half a million people in England and Wales moved home in 2005 as a result of noise.

There can be more serious consequences, too. According to Andrew Griffiths, principal policy officer at the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH), prolonged exposure to noise can have a serious effect on health. "There is evidence that noise can increase the risk of heart disease and raise blood pressure, and can harm child development, in particular reading comprehension," he says. "The nuisance and annoyance caused can, in extreme cases, lead to death or injury due to suicide or assaults."

The Thompson family is a case in point. They moved into a new semi-detached family home in Lancashire a year ago with their two young daughters, and have since, they claim, been subjected to regular poundings of drum and bass music from next door. Despite council involvement, the situation has still not been resolved and, as a result, the family have been forced to put their house on the market, although they are not very confident they will be able to sell. "We have been completely emotionally drained by the experience," says Lisa Thompson. "My marriage has been stretched to breaking point. What should have been a dream move has now turned into a nightmare."

Many people living in the countryside are now experiencing problems usually associated with city life, says Shaun Spiers, chief executive of the Campaign to Protect Rural England. "Gradually, more and more of our countryside is being engulfed by artificial, intrusive noise - the rush of tyres on tarmac, droning jets, humming ventilation systems in big buildings. Roads and flight paths are getting busier and busier, and urban areas are spreading ever outwards."

Night-time economy

Much of the increase in noise can be attributed to 21st-century lifestyles: 24-hour licensing, a night-time economy, more powerful entertainment systems. All factor into a noisier environment.

Attitudes towards noise don't help, either. Some people just don't seem to care that belting out power ballads at 3am or racing motorbikes around the streets could be driving their neighbours berserk.

"A lot of the problems come from a lack of awareness in communities," agrees Philip Mulligan, head of policy at the NSCA. "People are less likely to know their neighbours, and are therefore less likely to be considerate or to go round and sort out the problem."

Underpinning all this is the fact that noise has been neglected as a policy issue. Indeed, Michael Meacher, when he was environment minister, once dubbed noise "the Cinderella pollutant". Noise pollution was left on the sidelines as more media-friendly causes such as air pollution and climate change forced their way up the agenda.

"The legislation has not yet caught up with the new noises of the 21st century," says John Stewart, chair of the UK Noise Association, a coalition of noise campaigning organisations and individuals. "Noise is a nuisance and needs to be stamped on hard, but the government doesn't understand that it's a serious problem that affects a lot of people."

Although there are a number of powers available to local authorities to tackle noise - including confiscating stereo equipment, handing out fines, revoking entertainment licences for pubs and clubs and (from October) fining them, and even requesting Asbos - their effectiveness often depends on a council's resources. Not every local authority can justify or afford the expense of a night noise team, and this has lead to a piecemeal approach to noise abatement across the country.

There are plans to improve this situation. From October, the European Noise Directive will demand that noise maps of inhabited areas, roads, railways, airports and industry be drawn up by 2007, with a view to creating noise action plans for the worst-affected areas by 2008.

During 2007, the government will consult on a UK noise strategy, to be brought in by the end of the year. It will bring together ambient and neighbourhood noise under one policy, and will look at whether the various pieces of legislation should be amalgamated into one act. Also, the CIEH is soon to publish guidance for environmental health officers on noise management.

"We hope these measures will finally result in the development of coherent and effective policies, and the mechanisms and resources for enforcement, that will enable the widespread and growing problems of environmental, neighbour and neighbourhood noise to be tackled," says Mulligan.

But this will be of little comfort to those for whom the system currently fails. As Lisa Thompson's story demonstrates, noise might be the nearly forgotten pollutant, but its potential to ruin lives makes it one of the most powerful.

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