Noise Nuisance in UK Law

There were two significant differences of approach between Mr. Stigwood and Mr. Sharps. The second concerned whether it was appropriate, in assessing whether the noise generated by the activities at the Stadium and at the Track was capable of causing a reasonable person annoyance to a degree amounting to a nuisance, to take into account as one of the noise characteristics of the locality the noise generated by those very activities.

What was clear from Mr. Sharps's measurements, and was borne out by the recordings of measurements annexed to the second report of Mr. Stigwood, was that noise from the activities at the Stadium and at the Track, after the completion of the works undertaken in 2008 – 2009, was intermittently much louder, typically by 10 dB, than the ambient noise level leaving out of account those activities.

I quite accept that if the second and third defendants had ignored the breach of condition notices and had conducted their business at noise levels above those permitted by the planning permissions, the claimants might have been able to make out a case in nuisance. Abatement works were carried out in 2008 to the satisfaction of Forest Heath District Council. No breach of condition notices have been served since then, apart from one which did not relate to noise level.

I can well see that in such a case the public interest must be allowed to and prevail that it would be inappropriate to grant an injunction (though whether that should preclude any award of damages in lieu is a question which may need further consideration). The Court should be slow to acquiesce in the extinction of private rights without compensation as a result of administrative decisions which cannot be appealed and are difficult to challenge.

Shelfer is the best known case. It is a decision of the Court of Appeal. It has never been overruled and it is binding on this court. The cause of action was nuisance, as in this case, though in the form of noise and vibration rather than interference with a right of light.

It drew the line beyond which rural and landed England did not have to accept external costs imposed upon it by industrial pollution. But there has been, I think, some inclination to treat it as having divided nuisance into two torts, one of causing "material injury to the property," such as flooding or depositing poisonous substances on crops, and the other of causing "sensible personal discomfort" such as excessive noise or smells.

But as Clerk & Lindsell's description of the tort of private nuisance shows, the category of private nuisance which consists of interference with one's neighbour in the comfortable and convenient enjoyment of his land is quite separate and distinct from the category which consists of causing actual damage to his land.