HELP! Legal advice needed reguarding rent payments

[sheribee]

Hi everyone, i have a problem. We have rented our house from a private estate for over 2 yrs. They recently sold off 3 pockets of land surrounding our house, and 2 other houses next to us. They are now building the houses and putting in a new road and parking for us, but the noise and distruption to our lives in just unbelieveable! We were told it would be minimal disruption. The dirt, the noise, the mess is just awful. The builders are working on land that is still owned by the estate, have turfed up all the grass out the front of our cottages and it is an awful horrible mess! Its the noise that i cant take, my whole house shakes, i dont have double glazing, the windows rattle and litterally stuff falls off the walls when they use some machinary.
Im 6 months pregnant, and most days cant even be in the house its that bad! The noise is awful! I cant rest or nap in the day, and my hall carpet is ruined from all the mud that has been brought in (never had this problem b4)
So my question is, do i have a legal right to not pay part of my rent as the disturbance to our lives is ridiculous?
I have to go out most days which costs in petrol, and cant rest, even though i should.
The estate own the land in which they are working on, apart from the 3 plots which were sold off, and surely have a duty to the tenants to help reduce/minimise disruption.
If i could move tomorrow i would, and so would the 4 other tenants in the other houses here. we all feel that we shouldnt be expected to pay full rent as its unbearable being home most days.
Thanks in advance x

[bednobs]

you don't have any grounds to stop paying rent or not paying all of it. There is nothing to stop you entering into negotiations with the landlords though. Or in fact talking to the contractors to work out if there is any way it can be minimised. However, building houses is noisy, paying less isn't going to make that any better. Which bit is causing the noise? piling is noisy but should only form a small part of the build overall. Making roads is noisy, but should be over quite fast