Posted on: Sept. 27, 2019
Both EHOs and the Environment Agency consider that around 80% - 90% of the reports that they get from noise consultants are so inadequate that they ought to be rejected out-of-hand.
Think about that for a moment...
This is not only a waste of regulator time and resources, but it can also delay projects and dramatically increase the money spent on the (wrong) mitigation measures.
These inadequate reports are also the cause of continuing unacceptable noise environments for nearby residents that lead to more complaints and health issues into the future.
This should be an unacceptable state of affairs...
Interestingly, the title of my session was changed from "Why are noise consultant reports inadequate" to "Noise consultant reports: current best practice approaches" at the last minute. No comment...
This is not a new situation...
At the CIEH noise conference in 2014, Peter Wilson gave a presentation entitled "The Environmental Noise Industry is Not Fit for Purpose…", highlighting the general lack of knowledge of modern noise source diagnosis, control methods, and the poor performance of the consultancy and related industries. Use the link above to view the presentation.
What are the solutions? How do we improve the quality?
The presentation by our Technical Director Peter Wilson, outlines the principal common failings in both the approach and report content provided by most noise consultants and provides a pragmatic guide to current best practice to overcome these issues. This includes advice and recommendations on noise measurement (far too many measurements using the wrong locations and parameters); noise diagnosis (accurate diagnosis is extraordinarily rarely carried out - particularly where there is tonal noise); noise mitigation (there is only one process that leads to Best Practicable Means, but which is virtually never followed leading to unnecessarily high costs and poor performance) and reporting (reports are far too often provided by weight rather than by content). These recommendations should form the basis for a radical overhaul of what regulators should expect from the environmental noise industry both to reduce costs and to produce better outcomes for both companies and local residents.
EHOs and Environmental Agencies can make use of our free remote diagnosis and environmental noise reduction service as a very effective shortcut during the initial stages of noise projects.
There is also a detailed guide to narrow-band tonal noise analysis and source diagnosis. Although rare (think hens' teeth) in acoustic consultant reports, it is best practice...
Download a copy of the presentation here >
