LADACAN is a residents’ group primarily concerned with the impact of Luton Airport on the surrounding communities. We believe that the Airport’s location is unsuited to its purpose and oppose further growth in air traffic. More details about LADACAN and its views can be found on other pages of our web site which can be accessed through the navigation buttons on the left.
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Draft Noise Action Plan consultation closed
The consultation on the draft Noise Action Plan (NAP) is now closed. LADACAN’s response was submitted following discussion at our AGM on 26th November.
As we expected, the draft contains nothing which will deliver a reduction in the noise experienced by those living around the Airport. The majority of the 51 actions listed in the document are already in place and have been proved to have no effect. The new proposals are either commitments to gather and publish more data about noise or to hold more discussions about it. While talking about reducing noise is better than nothing, these talks should have been held before the draft Action Plan was published: the European Directive requiring NAPs dates from 2002 and the noise maps which they should be based upon were published in 2007.
UK Government guidelines for NAPs stipulate that they must identify problems and situations which need to be improved, to specify actions to deal with them, to estimate the reduction in the number of people who will be affected by noise and to provide budget and cost-benefit estimates for the actions. The Airport’s draft fails to identify any specific issues to be addressed. As a result, it contains no actions to deal with them and no targets (“performance indicators”) for improvement.
The draft NAP details can be found on the environment section of the Airport public relations web site under the “Draft Noise Action Plan Consultation” tab together with details of the exhibition to be held on 4th January.
WHO Night Noise Guidelines for Europe
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently published new guidelines for night noise. Its conclusions are intended to support EU Member States in their efforts to reduce the health impacts of night noise.
The guidelines are based on a thorough review of the scientific literature on night noise exposure and health impacts. Around 500 papers are cited and the guidelines address the whole range of possible effects from sleep disturbance to cardiovascular disease.
To protect public health from night noise, the WHO recommends that outside noise should not exceed 40 dBA Lnight. As there are large numbers of people in Europe who are subjected to more than this level of night noise, they recommend that Governments adopt an interim target of 55 dBA Lnight.
The noise maps which were produced as a basis for Noise Action Planning (see above) show that 500 people around Luton Airport were exposed to night noise levels which exceeded 55 dBA Lnight in 2006 and we know that night noise has increased since then.
The WHO Guidelines also demonstrate that the minimum period of the night over which noise must be controlled if the full sleeping time of half the population is to be protected is 8 hours. To protect 80 per cent of people, control must be exercised over a 10-hour period. LADACAN has long argued that night noise at Luton must be controlled over the period 23:00 to 07:00 rather than 23:00 to 06:00 (07:00 on Sunday) as now.
More questions over aircraft noise indicator
Another study of annoyance form aircraft noise has cast doubt on the validity of average noise (Leq) as an indicator of annoyance. The HYENA (HYpertension and Exposure to Noise near Airports) study* demonstrates that annoyance is much higher than the indicator preferred by the aviation industry predicts.
* Annoyance due to aircraft noise has increased over the years--results of the HYENA study. Environ Int. 2009 Nov;35(8):1169-76.
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Luton & District Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise - site updated 03 February, 2010
