The Mayor's Ambient Noise Strategy - Greater London Authority

The Mayor’s Ambient Noise Strategy
Mayor of London iii
preface the Mayor’s Environmental Strategies
This Strategy is one of a series dealing with environmental issues in
London. The Mayor is required to produce four environmental strategies
addressing Air Quality, Ambient Noise, Biodiversity and Municipal Waste
Management. He has also decided to produce an Energy Strategy for
London. The main elements of each environmental strategy are reflected
in the overall London Plan and where appropriate in the Transport and
Economic Development Strategies. Together these strategies provide the
basis for improving London’s environment. They also provide an
integrated framework for sustainable development.
Whilst improvement of London’s immediate environment, by reducing
pollution and improving the quality of life for Londoners, is the main
purpose of the environmental strategies, this is not the sole objective.
The strategies also need to take account of London’s wider impacts on
the global environment and identify action to reduce damaging or
unsustainable processes. To do this we need to understand the way that
London functions in terms of its daily processes and be aware of its
wider ecological footprint, recognising that this extends to virtually all
parts of the globe.
A detailed analysis of London’s ecological footprint, published in 2002,
quantified the energy and materials used or wasted by current practices.
This was summarised in the Mayor’s State of the Environment Report for
London published in May 2003. It demonstrates unsustainable levels of
resource use resulting from a fundamental difference between the way a
city works and the processes of the natural world. Whilst natural
ecosystems have a series of inbuilt circular processes, preventing most
wastage, the metabolism of a modern city is almost entirely a one-way
process. This is particularly true of affluent cities in developed countries,
where vast quantities of material are imported daily for human use and
waste products are discharged as unwanted residues. London is no
exception. Examining individual elements of London’s functional
metabolism, such as waste or energy will help to identify action we can
take to improve our environmental performance and reduce damaging
impacts elsewhere. This is crucial if we are to be successful in combating
climate change and reducing London’s global impacts on biodiversity
and natural resources.
The Mayor’s draft London Plan makes it clear that to become an
exemplary, sustainable world city, London must use natural resources
more efficiently, increase its reuse of resources and reduce levels of waste
and environmental degradation. As London grows, these objectives will
become ever more important. The shift towards a compact city, which is
inherent in the London Plan, will contribute towards these objectives. It