You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
I know these kind of things are sure to entertain a few folk on here. There are all kind of detrimental health effects
After listening to the latest Chris and Xand Van Tulleken podcast about noise I looked up the noise maps. This is the Scotland map, I believe there is a defra one too.
https://noise.environment.gov.scot/noise-map.html
I love maps. I wanted to click "air transport" but it's not on the list.
That is excellent. Although I do note that it doesn't account for how noisy a quiet thing is in a quiet place.
It might be bad form to look back at the COVID lockdowns with any sort of pleasure but the reduction in road traffic noise, even in my relatively quiet area, was outstanding, with bird noise then being by far the loudest sound around.
Agreed that lockdown was wonderful.
As I understand it, there's growing evidence of how bad sustained, unnatural sound is for our physical and mental health.
One of the things the podcast highlighted was that during COVID the people under Heathrow were grateful for the lack of air traffic. A plane every 90 seconds. Even though I live just south of Edinburgh, I'm glad we're not that noisy.
We're still pretty quiet and pretty dark overall.
I love maps. I wanted to click "air transport" but it's not on the list.
Me too. Also not making it into the industry filters is our local fishing harbour. I'm not complaining about it as I knew it was there when I bought my house but it can be very noisy. Not on the map.
Regarding lockdown, not only was there a reduction in noise but it was very noticeable how much clearer the sea was when there was no trawling etc going on.
Certainly noticeable when you move from a relatively noisy place to where there's very little. Previously lived in Fleet, about a mile south of the M3, mainline railway - the noise was incessant, plus there was Farnborough Airport as well as being under the approach to Heathrow. Only on Sunday mornings was there any semblance of quiet.
Now living on a Hebridean island - on a still evening you can hear people talking on boats moored in the harbour about 200m away. The only industrial noise is of the ferries plying their way up and down the sound. In summer, with the windows open at night all you can hear are owls - often woken by the dawn chorus of birds singing.
As an aside I took one of the kids for a hearing test at hospital a couple of days ago, the soundproofed room was an absolutely lovely place to be.
Made me realise how annoying noise is most of the time (I'm already fairly intolerant of harsh noises) and how relaxing real quiet is.
I remember going for a ride out of Avebury up onto the Downs around Barbury Castle, just around the time the Foot and Mouth closures were being lifted, I hardly saw another living soul, and only the occasional noisy motor vehicle some miles away, and it was extraordinarily quiet!
I actually thought I’d misunderstood and the lockdown was still in place.
I live on a fairly busy road, with another busy road it joins, used to be the A350 until a bypass was built, and during periods of hot weather, when I have my bedroom windows open, I have to wear earplugs to get to sleep.
The squabble of starlings at 5am doesn’t help either… 🤷🏼♂️
I had all my double glazing replaced about 18 months ago, and that’s made a huge difference when it’s colder and I have the windows closed.
I have the misfortune of living about 20 metres from one of those red roads.
Nowadays I find the road noise absolutely disgusting.
It's funny, because we have lived here for 22 years now, so you would have thought that I would have got used to it, but that isn't the case.
We also live under the flightpath in and out of Edinburgh AP.
I found some traffic census data that showed that the number of vehicles going past the back of my house has risen from 8k to 10k per day over the last 20 years! I knew that it had become busier (and noisier).
The road (and planes) noise is impacting my physical and mental health.
My blood pressure has risen slightly and I feel quite depressed.
I am desperate to move somewhere quieter, but my wife won't budge.
We had a chat about it last week and she agreed that we would aim to move in the next 2 or 3 years.
I hope this happens or I think that I will end up bursting!
I have suffered from Tinnitus for most of my life and I am sure that I have developed Misophonia over the last 5 to 10 years.