Rob, a fair point, unfortunatly as i said in an earlier post "Who is there first makes no difference to a noise nuisance, if its a nuisance its a nuisance", however it is possible that a planning department with the help of an Environmental Health Department can throw the problem back at the devellopers and insist that they build some noise reduction methodology into their proposed dwellings. This was done when a pub was converted into dwellings when situated near a very noisy car tuning garage.
Again, this is not always easy and depends a little on amenable local authority staff and members.