View report page

NOISE
Noise is a community problem from two environmental aspects. There is the town planning problem
of designing roads, houses and leisure facilities to secure minimum damage to amenities and there is the
public health problem of securing minimum noise levels because of their effects on general nuisance and
prejudice to health. One aspect cannot be entirely divorced from the other as bad original planning can
create many subsequent problems of enforcement to abate nuisance.
In a borough like Islington, where open space and indeed living space is at a premium, the optimum
standards of planning which are locally possible may not always be adequate to ensure the elimination of
complaints of noise and it remains to consider what other noise reduction measures are possible.
SURVEY
Following the publication by the Noise Advisory Council of the document, 'Neighbourhood Noise'
the Council's Health Committee in January 1972 decided to carry out a noise survey of the borough to
establish particularly the ways people are troubled by noise arising from traffic and general neighbourhood
noise, i.e. industrial processes, building sites, noisy machinery and noise from domestic living. It was decided
to make the survey as comprehensive as possible and to invite the assistance of senior pupils from local
schools and voluntary organisations in the borough to act on the Council's behalf in gathering information.
Following the Health Committee meeting, teachers and pupils and the voluntary organisations were
invited to the Town Hall for a discussion on the subject, and the aims of the proposed survey were explained
by the chairman of the Health Committee, the chief public health inspector and myself. The press also
attended this meeting.
Subsequently staff and pupils from 11 secondary schools and 1 special school and 3 amenity groups
agreed to participate in the survey which is being organised on a ward basis. The survey has been divided
into two parts. The first consists of a 'social survey' whereby visits are made to 10% of all premises within
the area covered by the school or group and questionnaires designed to highlight points of complaint are
completed. This was proceeding at the end of the year. The second part will be the measurement of noise
levels using sound level meters at the points of complaint.
The noise levels obtained from meter readings will be transposed on to various noise maps for the
whole of the borough, and contour lines of noise levels will be drawn indicating the levels of noise which
apply in both the specific complaint areas and other areas deemed to be at 'noise risk' within the borough.
When a comprehensive picture of the noise levels has been built up, a transparency of the noise
contours will be superimposed over the future town planning zoning map, the projected housing needs
future development map and the future road traffic pattern map, all of which are used for the advanced
planning of road and housing development in the borough.
As an additional means of assessing the overall noise problem, leaflets were circulated to the 46,500
households in the borough inviting comments as to how, in their opinion, residents were unreasonably
affected by noise. Some 1,025 replies were received (2.2%) and processed. The noise sources mainly complained
of related to road traffic, including overnight parking of vehicles; noise from children and teenagers,
particularly around blocks of flats; domestic noise; rail transport; industrial and other workplaces; ice cream
vendor chimes; sirens and alarm bells and general neighbourhood noise. It was considered that 323 of these
complaints warranted investigation and this was in hand at the end of the year. It is hoped that the investigations
will show where a statute falls short of providing a remedy for certain types of complaint.
48