WHO report inequalities in people reporting annoyance by transport noise

The World Health Organisation (WHO) have published a fact sheet providing available data on the unequal ditribution of self reported noise annoyance for countries in the European region, which include the UK.  Key messages include that  in western Europe poorer households suffer more often from environmental noise annoyance than rich ones and complaints about environmental noise from neighbours or from the street are a major problem. It finds in the last decade the inequality gap in environmental noise annoyance narrowed slightly in central European countries and remained stable in western European countries. Rural households generally report fewer complaints than urban households.

Suggested mitigation actions include promoting and adopting more sustainable forms of transport to reduce both noise and air pollution. Also suggested is increased implementation of the EU Environmental Noise Directive and WHO’s environmental noise guidelines for the European Region. In particular, addressing socially disadvantaged groups in monitoring and mitigation measures, and ensuring that action plans to address noise issues at a regional level take potential social inequalities in noise exposure and different vulnerabilities into account.

The full report can be seen here.