Claremont 3G Pitch noise may exceed WHO guidance residents claim as application goes to tonight's Planning Committee

Campaigners against the proposed 3G pitch at Claremont High School which is going to Planning Committee tonight have written to Brent Planners pointing out the lack of a proper noise impact assessment by the applicants.

There are just 2 sentences included in the report without any accompanying professional assessment:

This is the letter from the Wealdstone Brook Residents' Association which they hope councillors will read before reaching a decision.

We have written to you on several occasions asking for a professional noise assessment to be made available.

We have asked you how Brent has arrived at the statements about noise that it has made in its report to the Planning Committee when no single noise assessment has ever been conducted at the site.

We have still not had any explanation from you.

Would it not be fair to say that any statements made about the perceived noise impacts could be considered 'baseless' when these are not being backed up by factual evidence?

We believe that there is no evidence to support the statements on noise made in the report to the Planning Committee. We therefore demand that these statements be struck from the report.

We have taken advice. We are convinced by the facts and find that the most basic estimates of the predicted noise impacts readily show that the noise created will likely exceed WHO guidance as has been demonstrated below.

We therefore remain resolute in requesting that the applicant provides a professional noise assessment prepared by an acoustic consultant.

Kind regards 

Wealdstone Brook Residents Ass. (Secretary).

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A recent report by the acoustic consultancy firm Bickerdike Allen Partners submitted to Brent Council on another 3G based planning application states the following:

Based on a review of sports noise surveys and similar sports noise impact assessments, a value of 73 dB LAF,max at 10 m from the edge of the pitch has been used to assess noise maxima. This value is considered representative of sounds including shouting from players on the pitch, referee whistles and ball strikes on mesh fences.

So, assuming that this is a reasonable general starting point, then it would seem reasonable to expect that the new installation at Claremont High School would equally exhibit 73 dB LAF,max at 10m from the edge of the pitch.

Some of the windows in Chapman Crescent are barely 25 metres away from the edge of the pitch.

Using basic modelling of sound attenuation it is estimated that residents in Chapman Crescent could thus expect 66 dB LAF,max at their windows.

Such noise maxima levels readily exceed WHO guidance and would create unacceptable noise impacts.

The delegated report to this planning application only makes a fleeting reference to the noise impacts. In fact, it consists of two sentences that suggest that the noise created by this application 'would not be to an extent that would warrant resistance to the proposal’.

There does not appear to be any evidence in the application to support this statement. 

However, it seems evident that the noise created by this application will in all likelihood exceed WHO guidance. There also appear reasons to suspect that the existing pitch (Ref 08/1968) may be creating noise that exceeds WHO guidance.