Diminishing reliability of the application of Standards on Environmental Noise in the UK

摘要

This paper is one of a series reviewing the development and application of guidance and standards on environmental noise in the UK. The first paper in this series, presented at Internoise 2016 looked at evolving problems with British Standard 4142 for industrial and commercial sound due to introduced ambiguity and a diverse range of problems. This paper reviews the practical application of standards. Community noise is generally divided into sources of environmental (transport), neighbour and neighbourhood noise (arising from commercial sites) with different principles applicable to each many without any decibel guidance. Boundaries between the assessment and determination of these three types of noise sources and determination of their acceptability are increasingly blurred in the UK with practitioners arguing guidance for one as directly transferable to others. Confusion and ambiguity regarding the interpretation of standards is arguably beneficial to developers and noise producers who may emit excess noise and those wishing to develop land in noisy areas. An inherent inability to enforce noise controls arises as any interpretation of compliance with standards is duty bound to apply the least onerous interpretation as in the UK it is normally subject to a criminal standard of proof. One of the most commonly applied standards in the UK is BS4142: 2014. Its revisions have introduced widespread ambiguity, uncertainty and contradictory application which were reviewed at Internoise 2016. In this study I examine, at random, a wide range of noise impact assessments provided within the UK applying guidance. I compare how that guidance is interpreted, whether limitations are correctly applied and the application in general of decibel based guidelines outside its scope. The findings identify widespread misuse of standards, the lack of adequate review of assessments and significant inconsistency in guidance application.