Noise prohibition and legislation
Taking European legislation as a model, Spain has developed not only noise laws but also action plans and noise maps with the objective of establishing concrete parameters and being able to establish limits and prohibitions, as well as the corresponding sanctions for the contravention of the differentregulations. Administrations are obliged to boost the protection of quiet areas and promote and encourage the development of less harmful activities for the acoustic health of the environment, establishing plans to reduce noise pollution.
The main law that exists in Spain to protect the environment from the negative effects of noise is Law 37/2003 of November 17, known colloquially as the Law of Noise that tries to adopt and adapt to Spanish law European regulations on matters in mattersof noise.
Through this law, municipalities throughout the national territory are obliged to develop municipal ordinances to adapt their urban projects to the provisions of them. Being the administrations closest to the neighbors, they have the duty to ensure the least impact of noise on their lives and adequate relationships between them with the environment and others.
Likewise, this law arises to directly legislate the problem of noise since before its promulgation it could only be interpreted indirectly in our constitutional text through health protection (art.43 CE), to the environment (art.45 CE) and to personal and family intimacy (art.18.1 CE).
Subsequently, Royal Decree 1367/2007 of October 19 develops the noise law and incorporates new acoustic quality objectives. In turn, there are many regional laws that develop it, for example, Decree 55/2012, of March 15, of the Governing Council, which establishes the legal regime for protection against noise pollution in the communityfrom Madrid or Law 16/2002, of June 28, on Protection against the noise pollution of Catalonia.
Finally, it is important to highlight the role of municipal ordinances in the contribution to the reduction of the impact of noise since state and European legislation is characterized by establishing a series of obligations to public bodies and does not develop the obligations of citizens and companies. These regulations establish, among many other things, the possibility of applying sanctioning measures to premises, companies and individuals and guaranteeing maximum noise levels allowed based on schedules or zones, generally 35 decibels during the day and 30 during the night.
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