According to the German noise law, in future it will be possible to set up kindergartens and playgrounds in residential areas without special permission.
Photograph: Alamy
“The noise children make does not have a damaging effect on the environment and neither is it something from which citizens need to be protected by the law,” said Peter Ramsauer, the government’s minister for construction and transport. “This is why we’re changing the law.”
Under the changes, children’s noise will in future be classed in the same noise exemption category as church bells, harvest work and the clearing of icy paths.
Hermann Kues, parliamentary state secretary for the family ministry, said the law was a long-overdue attempt to ensure that children became a more accepted part of society in a country where noise levels are regulated more strictly than anywhere else in the world.
“Tolerance and acceptance towards the laughing, screeching, singing and cries of children must be considered an absolute normality,” he said.
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