What We Want

As the summary of the UK legislation pertaining to noise pollution shows (Your rights as a Resident), the law seems to be skewed in favour of polluters. They are expected to "manage impacts" on a "don't ask for approval, ask for forgiveness" basis. There is nothing to manage when organising a music festival in a residential area - residents are just expected to put up with the noise. While a one-time event may fit the description of an extraordinary occurrence, organising an eight day festival does not! The situation is even worse when it comes to pubs with live music or party boats, which pollute several days a week, especially in the summer.

Some residents may argue they are not bothered by the noise and that party boats bring colour to their day to day. For those of you who believe that, I have a question - what is your definition of quality of life? And is this quality of life higher or lower with or without random sources of noise pollution?

Loud music is played in special venues for a reason. The reason is usually that people who didn't pay for the event and don't want to be part of it should be allowed to continue their lives without interference. That's why music venues should have noise protections that are effective, namely stopping all sound from getting out (or even if it gets out, surely not on a 300 m radius). Also venues like discotheques, which produce not only sound, but also vibrations, should abide by higher standards of noise protection. This is just another case of the "tragedy of the commons" - people expecting to benefit from a public good (the river Thames, a public open space) without too much care for the wellbeing of the residents affected by their business model. I have nothing against making money off of public spaces, as long as no one has to suffer for that.

We have the right to enjoy the quiet of our houses at any time, not just after 11 pm. (a state imposed curfew that noise polluters are doing their best to flout). For this reason I think the UK legislation needs to be changed to impose blanket bans on noise polluting events in residential areas, on a model closer to the one implemented in the US (see the comparison here Your rights as a Resident). We would like this website to act as a forum and vehicle to allow citizens to organize and find ways to bring about the change in legislation that we think is necessary.

A big step toward this goal is documenting all the cases of noise disturbance and having a single pane of glass to display them. This will allow us to discover specific patterns of disturbances, which will better inform the changes the legislation needs. Please let us know your thoughts about all this - they are what matters most!