Dick Bowdler Noise consultant

Noise-induced deafness

Over 100 years ago in 1908, The Annual Report, Factories and Workshops said “It is generally known that men employed in certain trades are liable to have their sense of hearing seriously impaired, if not entirely destroyed in the course of time, as a result of long continued exposure to loud noises.” It was to be another 55 years before any official guidelines and 82 years before legislation was brought in to reduce the risk of damage to hearing at work. Even now hundreds of thousands of people every year have their hearing damaged by their employment.

I have been measuring workplace noise for 40 years and can often calculate noise levels to which people have been exposed many decades ago. This will help establish whether a claim is likely to succeed or not.

I have given evidence many times at the Court of Session in Edinburgh and in Sheriff Courts in different parts of Scotland.