§ Mrs. MayTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister what recent estimate he has made of the number of households affected by poor sound insulation. [60660]
§ Mr. RaynsfordThe best estimate my Department has of the number of people affected by poor sound insulation comes from the regulatory impact assessment prepared for the revision of Part E of the Building Regulations—which deals with sound insulation between new dwellings. This examined data collected by the 1996 English house condition survey and concluded that 670,000 households were bothered by noise from neighbours which could be attributed to poor design of the building or a combination of poor design and behaviour of the neighbours.