Noise pollution — Audio equipment attached to inside of shop window — Window acting as loudspeaker Music audible in street — Whether respondent committing offence of operating a loudspeaker in street for purpose of advertising business — Section 62(1) of Control of Pollution Act 1974 — Appeal allowed
The respondent installed audio equipment in its shop to broadcast music interspersed with advertising for the shop. The equipment was attached to the inner surfaces of the shop’s plate-glass windows, and was audible in the street. The appellant council prosecuted the respondent under section 62(1) of the Control of Pollution Act 1974, which provided that “a loudspeaker in a street” was not to be operated for the purposes of advertising any business. The magistrates found that the equipment had the effect of making the windows into loudspeakers, but they dismissed the information on the ground that the requirement for the loudspeakers to be in the street had not been made out.
The appellants appealed by way of case stated. The question for determination was whether the magistrates had correctly concluded that, as a matter of law, the facts found could not support a conclusion that the windows so used were in the street.
Held: The appeal was allowed.
Once it had been established that the window pane was functioning as a loudspeaker, or a part of one, its outer face was plainly in the street even if its inner face was in the shop. A highway was presumed in law to extend to the face of the buildings by which it was bounded. Although the plate glass remained part of the adjacent property, its outer face was, in every realistic and practical sense, in the street. If it were used as a loudspeaker, the person using it as such would be operating a loudspeaker in a street. The facts found by the magistrates amounted to a finding that required conviction: Tower Hamlets London Borough Council v Creitzman (1984) 83 LGR 72 considered.
Mark Seymour (instructed by Colin Wilson) appeared for the appellants; the respondent did not appear and was not represented.
Sally Dobson, barrister
