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59
NOISE ABATEMENT ACT 1960 (Contd.)
It may even be that noisy road drills will soon be a relic of the
barbaric past.
Since the advent of the Noise Abatement Act an increasing number of
people are beginning to realise that being forced to listen to unwanted sound
is an invasion of their privacy and common law rights as a citizen, and from
numerous cases of noise nuisance it has been learned of noise attacks on
several main fronts, not the least of these by sapping energy so that the
body and mind succumb to disease they could normally fight off. It is
stated that a typist working in a noisy office uses up 20% of her available,
energy simply fighting the noise, and in the case of an executive the figure
rises to about 30%. If, therefore we take the national average to be but
10% and the average wage but £10, and the number of employed persons to be
around 20 million, the cost to industry is around one thousand million pounds
per annum.
As already stated, a great deal of work has been done by local
authorities without going into court, and Shoreditch is well to the fore in
this respect, although several actions in the court have been heard. The
range of noise nuisances dealt with by the Public Health Inspectors includes,
noise from pile drivers, noise from garage, noise from juke boxes, noise
from the loud speakers of ice cream vans.
The only action in the Courts taken by the Shoreditch Borough Council,
have been in respect of the latter. During the year 9 ice cream vendors were
found to be offending the law sounding chimes during prohibited hours from
ice cream vans. Four were taken to court and convictions recorded, and the
remainder received warning letters. It is noticeable that the action in
respect of ice cream vendors has certainly proved to be a deterrent.
In every other instance of noise nuisance satisfactory results have
been achieved by persuasion and being able to suggest practicable means of
reducing noise.