Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005, UK wide
Noise at Work Assessments
Noise-induced hearing loss builds up quietly across years of ordinary shifts and cannot be repaired once it has happened. AL23 Safety measures what your people are actually exposed to, reports it against the action values in the Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 and sets out what the law requires at each one, for clients UK wide.
What is a noise at work assessment?
Measurement of real exposure, not a reading from a phone app
A noise at work assessment establishes the daily personal noise exposure of each group of workers, written as LEP,d in A-weighted decibels, plus the peak sound pressure taken from impulsive sources such as hammering and cartridge tools. Those numbers only mean something once set against the three values in regulation 4.
Exposure depends on level and duration together, which is why a single spot reading is not an assessment. A loud task run for ten minutes can matter less than a moderate one that runs all shift.
The three values that decide what you must do
That distinction catches people out. Hearing protection can bring you under the exposure limit value. It cannot bring you under an action value or remove the duty to control noise at source.
Lower exposure action value
80 dB(A) daily or weekly exposure and 135 dB(C) peak. You must assess exposure, give information, instruction and training and make hearing protection available to anyone who asks for it.
Upper exposure action value
85 dB(A) and 137 dB(C) peak. Exposure must be eliminated at source or reduced so far as is reasonably practicable. Hearing protection must be provided and worn. Zones must be designated, marked and access restricted. Health surveillance applies to anyone regularly exposed above this value.
Exposure limit value
87 dB(A) and 140 dB(C) peak. This must not be exceeded. It is the only one of the three assessed with the attenuation of hearing protection taken into account. Both action values are judged on the noise arriving at the ear with no protection worn.
Who needs one
The trigger is 80 decibels, which is quieter than most people expect
Regulation 5 requires an assessment wherever employees are liable to be exposed at or above the lower exposure action value. You are likely at or above it if any of the following describe your workplace.
- People raise their voices to hold a normal conversation about two metres apart
- Noisy tools or machinery run for more than roughly half an hour across a shift
- You operate in fabrication, pressing, forging, foundry work, moulding, textiles, woodworking, quarrying, bottling or canning
- Employees report ringing in the ears or muffled hearing at the end of a shift
- Your last assessment predates a change of machinery, process, shift pattern or layout
Where those signals sit alongside vibrating tools the same population usually needs a hand-arm vibration assessment. We survey both in one visit where the tasks overlap.
The regulations that apply
Your legal framework, in plain terms
The Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 sit beneath the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and work alongside the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. They do not ask you to be quiet. They ask you to know your exposure figures, to reduce them at source where you reasonably can and to protect people while you do it.
Regulation 4
Fixes the lower and upper exposure action values and the exposure limit value. It permits weekly averaging where exposure varies markedly from day to day.
Regulation 5
Requires a suitable and sufficient assessment where exposure is liable to reach or exceed 80 dB(A), reviewed regularly and on significant change.
Regulation 6
Requires exposure to be eliminated at source or reduced as low as is reasonably practicable, biting hardest once the upper action value is reached.
Regulation 7
Governs hearing protection. Available on request at the lower action value. Provided and worn at the upper action value, with zones marked and access restricted.
Regulation 9
Requires health surveillance for workers regularly exposed above the upper action value and for those at particular risk below it, including anyone with existing hearing damage.
What we assess
Exposure by role and every route to cut it
- Daily personal noise exposure for every job role and every significant task, calculated as LEP,d
- Weekly averaged exposure where the working pattern varies markedly across the week
- Peak sound pressure in dB(C) at impact and impulsive sources
- Area and machine levels, mapped so you can see where a zone boundary genuinely falls and whether existing zones are drawn, signed and enforced correctly
- Real-world performance of the hearing protection issued, using SNR or HML data, including over-protection and isolation from warning signals, plus compatibility with helmets, eyewear and RPE
- Practicability of control at source, covering enclosure, damping, isolation mounting, silencers, quieter tooling and relocation
- Work organisation options such as job rotation, run-time limits and separating noisy tasks from occupied areas
- Health surveillance arrangements, training given and how audiometry results feed back into control decisions
Our process
From task inventory to a dated control plan
- 01
Scoping and task inventory
We agree the roles, areas and shifts in scope and build a task list with indicative run times, covering the genuine worst case.
- 02
On-site measurement
We measure at the operator position with equipment field calibrated before and after, using dosimetry where workers move between sources and static measurement where they do not.
- 03
Exposure calculation
We combine level and duration into LEP,d for each role, calculate peak values separately and compare both against all three regulation 4 values.
- 04
Control plan
We set out reduction at source first, then zoning and protection, each with an owner and target date.
- 05
Report and review
We issue the report, talk you through it and agree a review point tied to your next process or equipment change.
What you get
The figures, the zones and what to fix first
- A written report naming the instrumentation, calibration record and measurement positions
- An exposure table by role and task showing LEP,d and peak dB(C) against all three regulation 4 values
- A marked-up site plan showing measured levels and the correct extent of each hearing protection zone
- A prioritised action plan separating engineering measures from protection, with owners, target dates and a hearing protection specification for each zone
- A health surveillance recommendation naming which roles require audiometry and at what frequency
What we need from you
Access during production and a few records
- A site contact who knows the process and can arrange access during production
- Shift patterns, task durations and any seasonal working that changes exposure
- An equipment list with manufacturer noise emission data where you hold it
- Details of hearing protection currently issued and any existing zone signage
- Previous assessments and, where occupational health will release them, audiometry outcomes
Why AL23 Safety
We rank source control first because the regulations do
Accountable
When something is non-compliant, we say so clearly and set out the fix. If a zone is drawn in the wrong place or the protection issued is over-attenuating, the report says so.
Expert and chartered
Chartered Building Engineer and Health and Safety Professional leadership, working to current standards and legislation.
Practical, not just compliant
We rank control at source above protection because the regulations rank it first. We also say which of those measures are realistic in your building.
UK wide
We survey sites across the UK from our Manchester base, including multi-site programmes run to one method.
Talk to us about noise
Straight answers on where you actually stand
If you are unsure whether exposures reach 80 or 85 dB(A), a short call usually settles the question before any survey is booked. No obligation and no pressure.
Common questions
Answers, up front
Cannot see your question? Get in touch and we will answer it directly.
Contact usPrice is driven by the number of measurement positions, the number of distinct roles and shifts, site size and whether dosimetry is needed for mobile workers. One production hall with four roles is a different job from a multi-building site on three shifts. Tell us the headcount, the process and the number of sites and we will quote against that. Surveys can also sit inside retained health and safety support.
Most single-site surveys are measured in one visit of half a day to a full day, with the report following. Measurement has to cover representative production. We plan the visit around a normal production run rather than a quiet week.
Regulation 5 sets no fixed interval. It requires review regularly, whenever there is reason to believe the assessment is no longer valid and on significant change. In practice that means reviewing whenever you change machinery, tooling, layout, shift patterns or output.
Health surveillance under regulation 9 applies to workers regularly exposed above 85 dB(A). The pattern in HSE guidance is a baseline audiogram before exposure, then annually for the first two years, then every three years, with more frequent testing where damage is detected. That frequency sits in HSE guidance rather than in the regulations themselves.
Noise-induced hearing loss is not one of the occupational diseases listed in regulation 8 of RIDDOR 2013. A diagnosis does not by itself create a report. It does create civil claims exposure and a clear signal that controls are failing. Where audiometry shows a threshold shift we treat it as a trigger to re-measure, a link we also test in any health and safety audit covering noise.
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