The Mayor's Ambient Noise Strategy - Greater London Authority

238 Mayor of London
The Mayor’s Ambient Noise Strategy
Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution
The Commission’s Eighteenth Report: Transport and the Environment,
RCEP, 26 October 1994, included the following objectives:
H: To reduce noise nuisance from transport.
H1: To reduce daytime exposure to road and rail noise to not more than
65 dB L Aeq16 hour
at the external walls of housing.
H2: To reduce night-time exposure to road and rail noise to not more than
59 dB L Aeq 8 hour
at the external walls of housing.
European Commission’s 5th action programme on the environment
The European Commission’s 5th action programme on the environment
proposed, for night noise exposure at home:
■ To phase out exposure above 65 dB L Aeq
;
■ To ensure that at no point in time a level of 85 dB L Aeq
is exceeded;
■ To aim to ensure that the proportions of the population exposed to
average levels between 55 and 65 dB L Aeq
should not increase; and
■ That exposure in quiet areas should not increase beyond 55 dB L Aeq
.
UK Government consultation ‘Towards a National Ambient Noise
Strategy’, November 2001, reported survey results suggesting that the
level of 85dB(A) was not exceeeded in England and Wales and that fewer
than 1% of the population exposed to noise levels of greater than
65dB(A) at night. London-wide representative figures are not available.
OECD - Fighting Noise (1986)
The OECD identified the following ‘thresholds for noise nuisance’ in terms
of day-time L Aeq
:
■
■
■
At 55-60 dB(A), noise creates annoyance;
At 60-65 dB(A), annoyance increases considerably; and
Above 65 dB(A), constrained behaviour patterns, symptomatic of
serious damage caused by noise arise.