New Study Confirms Noise Nuisance Claims

11th November, 2007

The government has finally published its study into aircraft noise annoyance, ANASE. The study confirms what many people already knew – that the government’s adherence to 57dB as the onset of annoyance is unjustified.

The study took 6 years until publication. The study can be found here.

ANASE was a complex and ground-breaking study, so it was inevitably going to take a long time to complete. However, there is no doubt that the government was uncomfortable with the conclusions because the study shows that the basis of its noise policy is flawed. NGOs and local government representatives believe that (central) government wanted to delay publication and water down the conclusions because of the implications.

In particular, the government’s insistence that 57db is the onset of significant annoyance has been shown to be far too high. A figure of 50dB is more appropriate. This means that far more people are affected by noise than the government currently admits. Also the ‘economic cost’ of noise, currently estimated by the government at £25m across the whole country, is clearly far too low.

See ‘press’ section of the site for AEF press release.