The Mayor's Ambient Noise Strategy - Greater London Authority

32 Mayor of London
The Mayor’s Ambient Noise Strategy
4 To promote effective noise management on rail
networks in London;
5 To minimise the adverse impacts of aircraft noise in London,
especially at night;
6 To minimise the adverse impacts of noise on or around
London’s rivers and canals, while retaining working wharves
and boatyards, and enhancing water space tranquillity and
soundscape quality;
7 To minimise the adverse impacts of industrial noise, recognising
the use of best practicable means/best available techniques,
and the need to retain a diverse and sustainable economy;
8 To improve noise environments in London’s neighbourhoods,
especially for housing, schools, hospitals and other noisesensitive
uses;
9 To protect and enhance the tranquillity and soundscape quality
of London’s open spaces, green networks and public realm.
Guidelines, limit values and targets
3.4 The way in which noise is managed in different countries varies widely.
Many standards, regulations, guideline values, and legal and
administrative processes are currently in use in the UK, addressing
different aspects of noise in different ways (see Appendix A5). Processes
of international harmonisation, particularly within the European Union,
are likely to involve changes to UK practice, as may the process set out
for a National Ambient Noise Strategy.
3.5 Noise policy has tended to focus on limits applied to sources, and
guidelines for noise-sensitive receptors. Greater emphasis is being placed
on maintaining and enhancing ‘tranquillity’. Tranquillity is likely to need to
be defined in relative rather than absolute terms. For example, a suburb
of a large city might be considered quiet by city dwellers, while the same
ambient level in a remote rural area might be considered noisy in local
terms. Noise control has generally recognised that the acceptability of
noise depends very much on context. A given physical level of road, rail,
aircraft or industrial noise is not a complete predictor of human response,
with wide variation in attitudes.
3.6 Requirements of the European Environmental Noise Directive 1 include
member states reporting to the Commission on ‘limit values’. There is