Overcoming noise problems - legal expert Peter Coulson
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There is no doubt that noise is going to be the issue of 2007.
A new extension to the Noise Act, which comes into effect next month, is going to give environmental health officers a third string to their already well-equipped bow - although how much they will use it is anyone's guess.
So it was somewhat refreshing to see a district judge have a go at a council that had taken a pub landlady to court, by saying that the noise pollution in neighbouring flats was due to their shoddy workmanship because they had not built the walls thick enough!
Before you all get too excited and turn up the bass boost, let me say that the case turned on its own facts. The normal legal approach is that even Johnny-come-latelies can have a go at you if you cause them to lose sleep.
There is a popular idea in the trade that if someone moves into a flat next to a pub, knowing it runs entertainment, they only have themselves to blame. If you move next to a Premiership football ground, for example, you are going to be disturbed by crowd noise, bad parking and potential damage.
That's not how the law works. An isolated pub can make a lot of noise, and no-one complains because no-one is around. But as soon as someone builds a house next door, they can start complaining the following day.
It seems unfair, because they came on the scene well after the pub, and must have known what they were letting themselves in for. But it is the actual noise pollution on which the court will eventually rule, not on who got there first.
The answer, as one canny licensee discovered, is to get your retaliation in first. He objected to council plans to build old people's sheltered accommodation next to his entertainment pub on the basis that it was an inappropriate siting and would lead to problems. He was absolutely right about it, of course, and the result was that the planners changed their minds. He could have persisted if necessary and ensured that if something was built, there was adequate soundproofing (which would not be at his expense). But stopping the development was even more effective.
There will always be tension between those who provide entertainment and those who live next door and have to listen day after day. But judging from these stories it isn't all one-sided.