Examination of Witnesses (Questions 119-138)
MR HOWARD
PRICE
25 MARCH 2004
Q119 Chairman: Welcome, Mr Price. I am
sorry that this has all been a little delayed, but thank you for
your patience and for coming along. You have not sent us a memorandum
and, in fact, we have only had one memorandum from an independent
consultant regarding noise in the course of this inquiry. Noise
is, as it were, the dog that has not barked. Is there not a problem
with noise? Is that the conclusion that we should draw?
Mr Price: From my not having submitted
a memorandum?
Q120 Chairman: From the fact that hardly
anyone has submitted a memorandum at all. It seems to be something
that people are not interested in. Perhaps there is not a problem.
Mr Price: My excuse is that I
simply did not pick up the notice of the inquiry. I am sorry about
that. Noise is a complicated business. On the one hand we know
quite a lot about it and on the other hand we do not understand
it very well. There are lots of figures, some of which appear
to be conflicting. It is sometimes called a "social construct",
which is to say noise is not just a matter of acoustics; there
are social factors at play and that makes it particularly complicated
to understand. I think it is probably fair to say that environmental
noise is not a huge problem for most of the population, but for
that proportion for which it is a problem it can be a serious
problem. I do not know if I can perhaps suggest some figures to
back that up. In trying to prepare for this I looked at some surveys
which have become available fairly recently. If I can pick out
information from a couple of those surveys for you, somewhere
between 84 and 63% of people say that they are aware of neighbourhood
noise around them but it does not bother them unduly. The same
surveys point to a range of somewhere between 46 and 37% who claim
that they find it annoying to some degree from time to time but
that degree is not explained. A smaller number still, somewhere
around 14% or so, claim that it actually affects their lives to
some degree. A MORI survey done just last year for Defra found
that ten% of people had complained to someone at some time about
noise, whether that was the noise maker or the local authority
or their landlord or whoever.
Q121 Chairman: Certainly they complain
to us quite a lot.
Mr Price: The number who complain
to local authorities each year—local authorities are the
main enforcers of local noise control—is only about half
of one per cent.
Q122 Chairman: It is helpful to have
it in perspective. I noticed on your website, looking at a release
that you put out in December 2001 reporting your annual survey
on noise enforcement activity, that you were pretty optimistic.
You said: "while numbers of complaints remain high, it is
pleasing to see they have levelled off" and you felt that
the levelling-off was in part down to the increasing attention
given to noise nuisance by Environmental Health Officers. Unfortunately,
since then the incidence of complaints has increased quite sharply.
I just wonder why you thought that had happened.
Mr Price: I am not sure that it
has. We have a lot of trouble in getting these statistics from
local authorities. In particular, the same authorities do not
respond year-on-year. Just a year or so ago we looked at a five
year period and found that just 100 local authorities from England
and Wales had responded consistently over that five year period.
I looked again for those 100 last year and I could not find them.
That is the degree of shift that we have got in the sample base
for that survey. There is no way of normalising those figures,
every local authority is different. Strictly speaking, they do
not show a trend and one has to be very cautious about looking
at those figures. They are a snapshot of the responders in that
year but it is difficult to look at trends. Looking slightly longer
term, from the early 1970s up until around 1996-97, something
like that, there was about a five-fold increase in the reporting
of complaints. Notwithstanding what I said about the sampling
base, I think that does show a genuine increase. The scale of
that cannot be due to a statistical variation. Since then, however,
since 1996-97-98, something like that, things have been fairly
flat. They do go up and down a little bit but, as I say, the sampling
base is changing all the while. Certainly something has changed
since the late 1990s.
Q123 Chairman: The figures that you yourself
published state that there were 238,000 complaints in 2000-01
and 305,000 complaints in 2002-03, that was why I suggested that
there had been an increase. If the basis of collecting that data
is so flawed, is it worth publishing it at all?
Mr Price: It is worth publishing
bearing in mind the caveats because there is nothing else. Nobody
else tries to collect that sort of data. Although there are significant
faults with it, I think there is still some useful information
to get out of that. Currently we are in the process of revamping
the whole thing and extending the amount of information that we
are asking local authorities for so that we get better information
for determining future policy. Defra has given us a lot of support
in that process, and continues to do so, and we are very grateful
to Defra for that. Nevertheless, we are still experiencing some
resistance from some local authorities who either do not collect
statistics at all or who will not hand them over to us. Until
we get a virtually 100% return it is always going to be difficult
to discern proper statistically sound trends.
Q124 Chairman: Do you think the local
authorities that are not responding are behaving like this just
because it is a very low priority for them?
Mr Price: That may be true of
some. I have not investigated their reasons but that may be true
of some. I think probably others find that there are other priorities
at the year end when we send our questionnaire out. The reasons
probably vary.
Q125 Chairman: The help that Defra is
providing you with, is that financial help or guidance or representing
the issues to local authorities? What type of help is that?
Mr Price: In the first place Defra
provided funds for a consultant to help research the development
of a new bigger database and that involved quite a lot of work:
focus groups of local authorities, talking to the software houses
to make sure they could fulfil the spec and so on. That was very
welcome. In recent years Defra has tried to encourage local authorities
to respond and they have certainly written to each local authority
at the year end when we send out our questionnaire asking them
to send it back, and on occasions they have followed that up with
phone calls to authorities that have not returned. But still quite
a number do not. I think the highest return rate we have ever
had was 82%. A substantial number of authorities are not playing
ball here.
Q126 Mr Thomas: I find all this quite
fascinating because from our perspective, and I think we all share
this, noise features quite largely in our postbag, every week
there will be a noise problem. Sometimes it is the same ones coming
back, but I will not bang on about that at the moment. The relationship
is clearly there between noise in a neighbourhood and its relationship
with the anti-social behaviour agenda in the widest sense of the
word, that people are seeing this as a problem inflicted on them
either by noisy neighbours or the way cars or buses or whatever
drive around their area or, on occasion, by temporary things like
construction work, which is easier to deal with because at least
you can see an end to that. Are you aware of any developments
that are happening at the moment to try and strengthen or improve
the ability to tackle a noise nuisance from the point of view
of the anti-social behaviour agenda? As an MP, I am always involved
in an ongoing discussion with a local authority about keeping
a diary of noise and then going back six months later, keeping
another diary of noise, and then maybe there is mention of a Noise
Abatement Order, and then it does not happen for some reason.
There never seems to be any decisive action that can be taken.
Am I being very pessimistic?
Mr Price: I suppose it is difficult
to generalise. I am sure some local authorities are more decisive
than others. I hear similar tales to this, the use of these diary
sheets is quite common when other authorities in the same circumstances
might have found the evidence to serve an abatement notice more
quickly.
Q127 Mr Thomas: The problem with these
diary sheets is it just reinforces what you said at the beginning
of the session, that noise is a social construct. It reinforces
the complainant's idea of noise but it does not bring to bear
any external evidence as to whether that noise nuisance is, in
fact, a noise nuisance or simply two neighbours who just cannot
get on. That is the difficulty for us to face.
Mr Price: That is the difficulty
for local authorities as well. There is a body of evidence to
suggest that noise complaints are often only a part of wider longer
running neighbour disputes in which the noise component alone
may really have no basis; it may be relatively trivial and it
may be that the local authority cannot do anything about it anyway
but they are called in aid of the wider dispute. Even if they
can deal with the noise aspect the other aspects can continue.
That is certainly the case.
Q128 Mr Challen: Is it not up to the
courts to decide what a noise nuisance is? A noise can be a very
loud noise or it can be a very low level bass, not a high pitched
sound but a constant low key noise, particularly at night time
when you tend to hear things and you are wanting to get to sleep.
We still have headlines in national newspapers where somebody
has their hi-fi confiscated which suggests that not many people
are actually having action taken against them. Do we now have
some clear definitions that the courts can use?
Mr Price: Ultimately it is a matter
for the courts, as are any of these legal definitions, but in
the first place it is for the local authority and usually the
Environmental Health Officer of the local authority to determine
whether a particular circumstance constitutes a statutory nuisance
or not. They are given that responsibility under the Environmental
Protection Act. In the first place they have a duty to inspect
their areas from time to time to detect matters which might be
nuisances and in the second place they have a duty to investigate
complaints made by residents of their area, and as a result of
either of those if they find a nuisance exists or is likely to
occur or recur, they have a statutory duty to serve an abatement
notice telling that person to pipe down or whatever. The initial
judgment is for the EHO.
Q129 Mr Thomas: What sort of training
does the EHO receive specifically about noise nuisance? He or
she will have a wide range of responsibilities; food safety would
be a huge one. Are you identifying whether they are receiving
training and particularly whether that training links into the
new powers that are coming in through the anti-social behaviour
measures that Government has introduced?
Mr Price: I cannot put a number
of hours on that for you.
Q130 Mr Thomas: No.
Mr Price: You are right that the
subject of environmental health is very wide. The standard qualification
route is a four year undergraduate course, in the course of which
there is a good deal of focus on nuisances generally and on noise
nuisance and acoustics particularly. I am sorry, I cannot say
how many hours there are in the average course.
Q131 Mr Thomas: I suppose I am asking
you in a roundabout way whether you think the training is adequate
at that stage but also adequate in an ongoing way, whether there
are enough opportunities for Environmental Health Officers to
brief themselves about the changes in the law, changes in public
perception about noise as well, so that they are more proactive
and decisive on these matters?
Mr Price: Yes, I do think there
is sufficient in the training to do that. What may affect what
happens later is, if you like, the culture of the particular authority
they then work for. Some are more dynamic than others, there is
no doubt about that.
Q132 Mrs Clark: Would you agree with
me that the greatest problem posed to local authorities is not
the lack of powers but actually the lack of resources to fund
the type of hit squad, a 24 hour reaction team, needed to actually
properly deal with this area of nuisance?
Mr Price: I think that is probably
correct. I do not think there is a need for any more big powers.
One could tinker around a little bit with what there is and one
might suggest fixed penalties should be available under the Environmental
Protection Act as they are under the Noise Act, for example. One
might think about consolidating the current noise legislation,
it is scattered around under a whole variety of statutes at the
moment. Informal resolution of complaints could perhaps benefit
from recognition in the Act. At the moment the duty is to go down
the formal route of serving an abatement notice whereas in point
of fact most complaints are settled informally, although authorities
are not supposed to do that. There are "irritants" as
well among the legislation. Recently I have been hearing about
magistrates refusing warrants to local authorities because of
human rights considerations. Where an alarm is sounding at night,
for example, and an authority wants to get in and turn it off,
the application for a warrant has been turned down because it
is deemed to be an invasion of privacy. The Regulation of the
Investigatory Powers Act is causing problems as well. One reading
of that is that local authorities cannot use tape recorders. I
am not sure that is correct or not, it will have to be contested,
but certainly it is concerning local authorities. There are these
sorts of things on the powers side. Yes, if you could throw more
people at it doubtless things would get sorted more quickly. As
you say, running a 24 hour noise service is very expensive. Noise
assessment is a skilled business, the equipment is expensive,
it is expensive to maintain and resources are always limited.
There is a feeling as well that they can be skewed within local
authorities, that there are bigger players, if you like, drawing
limited local authority resources away from this area of work.
I am thinking perhaps of the Food Standards Agency and to an extent
the HSE. I do not have any figures to back that up, it is a sense
we have that environmental protection is a bit of a Cinderella.
Mr Thomas: There is a final thought that
comes out of all of this. If I can take you back about 20 years
when I was at university in the little town of Aberystwyth. A
lock-in in a pub was a big thing, to have a drink after twenty
past eleven.
Chairman: I am sure you never did that.
Q133 Mr Thomas: No, this is only hearsay
you understand. You would come out of the pub, the town would
be quiet and you could not possibly get anything to eat at that
time, so it would be back to the flat or whatever to have beans
on toast. Now if you go to Aberystwyth at one o'clock in the morning
everyone will be coming out of several places that are open to
half past one, two o'clock, all the kebab shops are open and doing
a roaring trade—there were not any 20 years ago—there
is a 24 hour Spar which is much bigger than it sounds, it does
hot food, takeaway, everything that students want, all the taxis
are there piled up on the ranks. The change has been enormous
in a small university town like Aberystwyth, what it must be like
in the centre of Birmingham, Leeds or London I do not know. There
is a dichotomy here, is there not? There is a real challenge here
for Environmental Health Officers. How do they respond to a society
where the difference between day and night is disappearing fast,
where some people want to live their lives quite honestly in a
free way and want to carouse at three o'clock in the morning but
that has an effect on other people who have to get up at six o'clock
in the morning to do their jobs? A lot of that is political, I
understand that, but the central question for yourselves and Environmental
Health Officers is how do you control that? You are getting into
the realm of being social police, are you not?
Mr Price: That is probably not
a bad description anyway.
Q134 Mr Thomas: How can you rise to that
challenge? What is happening in your profession?
Mr Price: We do not have any powers
to control that sort of thing, frankly. We do not have powers
to control carousing in the streets, and never have had. We can
control the noise that spills out from the pubs and clubs, that
is relatively easy to do, that is part of the traditional role.
You are right that the problem associated with those premises
is not so much the music inside, it is the problem of people leaving
in quite large numbers in a small space of time, hanging around
outside waiting for the minicabs and that sort of thing. We have
no powers to control that. It may be controlled to some extent
by local authorities using planning powers but I am not an expert
in that at all and I think their ability to do that is somewhat
limited.
Q135 Mr Thomas: Observed in the breach
more than anything.
Mr Price: Maybe. Some authorities
have tried it. I know here in Westminster there was an attempt
to restrict the growth of those sorts of premises in the Soho
area because of local character and I am not sure that was successful.
I do not know the detail I am afraid. There is nothing that Environmental
Health Officers can do about that kind of noise.
Q136 Mr Thomas: Do you have the impression
that they feel that they are caught between a rock and a hard
place in circumstances like that where the local population are
asking for things to be done? I am not sure who should have the
powers on that. There is a range of powers obviously but clearly
that is an increasing problem, is that not the case?
Mr Price: I have no figures for
it but anecdotally I think you are probably right, it is an increasing
problem. Local residents do complain, they complain to the local
authority in other places and I guess it is elected members who
feel the frustration more. They are probably caught between their
officers saying "We cannot do anything" and residents
saying "We will not vote for you next time if you do not".
Q137 Chairman: A familiar story. Is there
anything else that you would like to share with us while you are
here, or have you been stunned into silence by the latter day
Under Milk Wood that Mr Thomas conjured up for us?
Mr Price: I think that will do
for now. Because we did not submit a memorandum, I wonder whether
it is appropriate to let your clerk have a note afterwards. Is
that helpful?
Q138 Chairman: That would be very welcome.
Mr Price: I will do that in that
case.
Chairman: Thank you very much and thank
you for the work you have done in preparing for this session,
we are most grateful. Thank you.
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