Information Centre

Residential Development

Pressing needs to provide more new housing means that a large number of sites are being considered for residential development. In the Secretary of State's view, residential development is noise sensitive; as many potential sites are exposed to noise from nearby roads, railways and airports, planners are obliged to consider noise exposure and future residential amenity.

AAD are experienced in assessing the noise exposure of potential residential development sites and in assisting with strategic land use and planning to best mitigate exposure to noise. Developers as well as local authorities rely upon our experience and expertise in assessing future residential amenity for large and small-scale sites.

Residential Buildings

New Building Regulations mean that every residential unit must be designed and built to meet new, more onerous, acoustic performance standards. Internal floors and certain internal walls, even for detached houses, must meet new standards. For flats, there is now a requirement to control reverberation in common parts. Sample pre-completion tests (PCT) must be passed for all residential conversion developments as well as for all hotels, residential retirement homes halls of residences, hostels and all other rooms for residential purposes. For new houses and flats, providing a formal application is made, exemption from pre-completion testing can be granted providing rigorous construction procedures are also followed. If any sample PCT failures arise, the Regulations require that all walls and floors must then pass tests prior to sale.

AAD provides services including the following:

Schools

New Building Regulations mean that every new school building must be designed and built to meet new, more onerous, acoustic performance standards. A report describing how the design of the new school ensures these new standards are met must be submitted to, and be approved by, Building Control. In order to accomplish this, noise arising from nearby roads and other external sources must be subject to surveying and an assessment of its intrusion through the proposed external building fabric must be made to ensure it is not excessive. Noise insulation of certain separating walls must meet particular requirements, teaching space reverberation musty be controlled and the scheme design and school management plan may require refinements where conflicts cannot be resolved through design alone.

AAD provides services including the following:

Health Care Development

Hospital and healthcare buildings remain excluded from the new building regulation requirements for acoustic performance. Health care building developers are, however, faced with potentially onerous employers requirements that are likely to cite acoustic design guidelines that can impose a potentially unmanageable cost burden.

AAD has considerable experience in PFI and LIFT health care developments.

Environmental Protection Act

This Act requires local authorities to serve a notice imposing conditions if they believe a statutory nuisance might arise or recur and this renders any person responsible for causing such a nuisance liable to criminal sanction if the conditions are not met. An appeal period of 21 days means the responsible person must rapidly instruct our opinion as to whether or not the notice is justified and if an appeal might bring about a better outcome than accepting the conditions otherwise imposed.

AAD are experienced in the assessment of environmental noise emissions, in the design of noise mitigating measures and in the interpretation of the best practicable means by which to abate noise. Many of our consultants are experienced in making expert testimony and have participated in judicial reviews ranging from Magistrate’s Court hearings to Public Inquiry.

Pubs and Clubs

Noise arising from pubs and clubs can be a determining matter for licence applications and renewals. AAD is experienced in the assessment of noise emissions from pubs and clubs and in the design and implementation of mitigating measures, including patron management procedures. Our consultants are experienced in making assessments and, when necessary, providing expert testimony and we have participated in judicial reviews ranging from Magistrate's Court hearings to Public Inquiry.

Exposure of Employed Persons to Noise

The Health and Safety at Work Act requires employers to assess those employees likely to be exposed to noise exceeding an 8-hr mean exposure of 85 dBA and to ensure that such assessments are stored and kept up to date. AAD is experienced in the assessment of employee noise exposure and in the design and implementation of noise mitigating measures suitable for use in a wide range of industries. Regulations soon to be imposed reduce this mean exposure to 80 dBA, which means that new assessments must be made and that when new industrial facilities are being designed that noise exposure to employed persons is controlled to lower levels.

Assessment of Industrial Noise in Residential Areas

The assessment, normally outside of a nearby residential or other noise sensitive premises, of noise of an industrial nature is necessary wherever there is an adjacency or potential adjacency of residential and industrial land uses. Such adjacency can lead to a potentially excessive noise impact upon residential amenity. AAD are experienced in making assessments by measurement of industrial noise emissions affecting mixed residential and industrial land use areas; we are also experienced in the design of noise mitigating measures suitable for a wide range of industries. Many of our consultants are experienced in making expert testimony and have participated in judicial reviews ranging from Magistrate's Court hearings to Public Inquiry.

Environmental Impact Assessment

In cases where development proposals are large in scale, the Secretary of State requires an Environmental Assessment be made and submitted for consideration. Such an impact assessment is likely to include a comparison of noise levels arising prior and subsequent to the implementation of the development and any noise effects upon prevailing amenity must be identified and, where necessary, mitigated. The most expedient approach to completing noise related EIA work is to compile a noise propagation model including all land and buildings forming part of the development proposal and, beyond that, all land and buildings that are potentially affected by the development proposal.

As AAD were an early adopter and investor in noise modelling technology, our practice is endowed with over 10 years experience in making noise assessments through modelling. AAD's noise modelling experience includes noise impact assessments from road, rail and generation of air traffic noise contours. AAD are experienced in making noise propagation predictions from active and specialist land uses including airport ground noise sources, motor racing and test circuit venues as well as from complex industrial sites.

Demolition and Construction Noise

In some cases, it is essential to assess noise levels likely to arise from demolition and construction sites prior to the commencement of works and such an assessment is most likely to support a Control of Pollution Act Section 61 consent. AAD are experienced in making assessments of this nature and our noise modelling experience can help to accomplish the task swiftly. In order to regularise the predictions made, it is likely that noise and vibration monitoring will also be required and here, AAD's highly mobile noise and vibration survey team is equipped to support construction and demolition site noise and vibration monitoring and reporting.

Noise and vibration Measurement

AAD are responsible for deployment, calibration maintenance and data extraction from over 70 noise monitoring sites installed over a wide geographical area. The experience of our field instrumentation engineers is probably unsurpassable; AAD are able to make noise / vibration monitoring station installations at short notice and we are also geared to acquire and supply measurement data for our clients or our consultants (and sometimes both) for interpretation and action.

Noise from Neighbours

The first step for anyone disturbed by recurring noise from neighbours is to keep a diary of what the noise was and when the noise started and stopped. Whilst this diary is being maintained, a visit to the Local Council's office should be made to collect any booklets there providing Noisy Neighbour guidance. This guidance must be followed and the diary must be maintained. Since the noisy neighbour may be unaware of causing any disturbance, the guidance is likely to suggest the matter is first brought to the attention of the noisy neighbour, so giving an opportunity to moderate and bring a potentially swift conclusion to the matter. If, after such action, the diary shows a continuing pattern of disturbance, it must be brought to the attention of an environmental health officer responsible for noise. This is best accomplished by making an appointment to meet the officer and, following any such meeting, a copy of the diary should be published to the officer for consideration. A written reply should be made however due to workload, this may take a while; the diary must still be maintained. The officer may advise that the Council will take action under the Environmental Protection Act and this is most likely if the neighbour is a trade or a business and that trade or business will be obliged to abate noise using the best practicable means. The officer may advise that no powers exist if noise arises from household activities such as ongoing DIY or ongoing parties.

Tackling anti-social behaviour, including disturbance arising from noise, is accomplished by a "multi-agency" approach being taken jointly by the local authority and the police. Particular structures vary according to region. The procedure normally taken by the multi-agency is to first send a warning letter; this is followed by the drawing up of either a Parental Control Agreement (making parents responsible for their child's behaviour if aged less than 10 years) or otherwise an Acceptable Behaviour Contract (ABC). An acceptable behaviour contract is a voluntary agreement between anyone committing anti-social behaviour and the multi-agency, normally comprising the local planning authority, local police authority and where applicable, local housing trusts and associations. Conditions that address anti-social behaviour are agreed at an informal meeting held to draw up the contract. The problem behaviour is discussed in detail and remedies to stop the behaviour are considered. A breech of the contract is considered to be a serious matter and can lead to an Anti Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) being sought in court. An ASBO can last for a minimum period of two years and a maximum period of life. The order contains conditions that prohibit certain acts of anti-social behaviour or can exclude someone from a particular area. A breech of an ASBO is an arrestable offence and carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment and/or a fine for adults and a two year detention and training order for juveniles (under 18 years). The contact details for anti-social behaviour co-ordinators should be available from the applicable local planning and police authority.