ABOUT half-a-million people in Britain have been forced to move home in the past year because of noisy neighbours, researchers have found.

More than a third of people (36%) claim that noise made by those around them had a detrimental impact on their lives, with those living in London and those in rented council accommodation suffering the most.

Children, noisy cars, car alarms, motorbikes and neighbours arguing are the most annoying, according to an Ipsos Mori poll commissioned by the National Society for Clean Air and Environmental Protection (NSCA).

The poll of just under 2,000 people aged 15 and above shows that 14% of the public have been woken up at night by noisy neighbours. Women are more likely than men to be kept awake.

About 5% of those who responded to the survey said they had argued with their neighbours in the past year over noise issues, while 1% claimed they had been forced to move because things had got so bad.

If reflected nationally, that would mean almost 500,000 people have taken such drastic action, according to the NSCA.

Last year Richard Oluwadare, 41, was served with an antisocial behaviour order that prevents him returning to his east London home for two years after a six-year campaign of loud DIY banging, stamping and playing loud music to torment his neighbours.

Ethel Preston, 104, who is hard of hearing, was served with a noise abatement order after she upset neighbours in Woodhouse Eaves, Leicestershire, by turning her television up to to full volume. One neighbour said he was forced to sleep in his car to escape the noise.

Ben Bradshaw, an environment minister, said: “Noise can make people’s lives a misery and damage health. We all have a responsibility to be considerate.”

Almost a quarter of respondents said that teenagers made the most noise in their area. In Wales, 12% claimed students were the noisiest. Nationally, 4% agreed.

Scottish residents are affected the most by noise from pubs and clubs, with 14% also claiming that their neighbours’ footsteps were a nuisance, compared with 7% of people nationally. This might be explained by the large number of shared tenement blocks in cities such as Glasgow and Edinburgh in which many flats have stripped wooden floorboards.

Almost half of all Londoners (48%) — the highest proportion in the country — said their quality of life was affected by noise pollution.

Cars with throbbing engines and loud stereos are among the most commonly cited sources of unwanted noise.

Edmund King, executive director of the RAC Foundation, said: “We would encourage decibel-loving drivers to resist the temptation to pump up the volume.

“Not only is loud music a nuisance to others, it could also be a cause of accidents on the roads.

“Although the decrease in reaction time from playing loud music translates into mere fractions of a second, on the UK’s busy roads, this reduction could mean the difference between a hit or a miss.”

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