Environment

Road and rail noise by postcode

For every postcode in England, the modelled road and rail noise (Lden, the yearly day-evening-night level) at its centre, from Defra's strategic noise maps.

Add to mapAPI
Published by
DefraOffice for National Statistics
Level of detail
Postcode (map point level)
Published for
Map point
Covers
England
Updates
Quarterly
Data period
Not recorded for this layer. The dates below are when it was published and fetched.
Published
7 September 2026
Fetched by Open Index
19 October 2026
Licence
Open Government Licence 3.0

Where it covers

  • England
  • Wales(not covered)
  • Scotland(not covered)
  • Northern Ireland(not covered)

Wales's noise maps give no licence for each layer yet, so Open Index does not show them.

Scotland's noise maps say they are not suitable for property enquiries, so Open Index does not show them.

Northern Ireland's noise maps are not in Open Index yet.

How it is made

Open Index shows the figures as Defra and Office for National Statistics publish them, for the areas they were published for: map points.

Larger areas use the publisher’s own figures, never an average of smaller areas.

Before you use it

  • Defra models noise for 2021 on a 10 m grid, 4 m above the ground. Each point is a postcode in England, at its centre, coloured by the louder of road and rail noise there. A postcode's homes can be quieter or louder, especially on a side street or behind a building.
  • Lden is the average over a year with 5 decibels added in the evening and 10 at night, because noise then disturbs more. Every 10 decibels is about twice as loud to the ear.
  • The World Health Organization advises that road traffic noise should be below 53 dB Lden and railway noise below 54 dB Lden. 65 dB or more is loud.
  • These are models of every road and railway, not measurements. They leave out aircraft and industry.

Colours on the map

Each point on the map, in one colour

Sources and licences

Strategic noise mapping, Round 4 (England)
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
Edition
Strategic noise mapping Round 4 (2021), Lden
Published
8 December 2023
Fetched by Open Index
19 October 2026
Licence
Open Government Licence 3.0
Credit line

© Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs copyright and/or database right 2023. All rights reserved. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

ONS Postcode Directory
Office for National Statistics
Edition
ONSPD_AUG26
Published
7 September 2026
Fetched by Open Index
15 October 2026
Licence
Open Government Licence 3.0
Credit line

Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2026.

  • Northern Ireland (BT) postcodes are licensed for internal business use only. They stay in the warehouse, marked restricted, and never reach a published file..

Use this data

GET /v1/layers/noise-postcode

The published data archive is on Zenodo: doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23508848.

This snapshot has no download for this layer yet. The catalogue CSV lists every layer with its dates, coverage and credit line.