Noise modelling without a noise survey during COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting everyones working life here in the UK, given the current lockdown measures.  And it’s no different for us acoustic consultants.  One of our core services to support planning applications for new developments is a noise impact assessment.  And 90% of the time, this involves a noise survey conducted at the site.

Now maybe technically we could get to site to do a survey, as some would say it’s work that could not be done at home.  But for safety, we’re not conducting site visits at the moment.  Fortunately, we can still produce noise impact assessments without a noise survey.  For the forseeable future, most local planning authorities and environmental health officers are willing to accept an approach based on noise modelling.  And this is exactly what we’ve been doing.

A comprehensive 3D noise map model can be produced for sites, with the model  parameters configured to predict noise levels based on several sources of information:

• Noise survey data and other relevant information from nearby sites and planning  applications which are within a short distance of the proposed site, or within similar proximity to the same roads that pass close to the proposed site. 
• Traffic count data available from several sources including the Department for Transport (DFT) and transport studies comissioned by local councils.  Traffic data can be input into the model which is able to conduct calculations in accordance with the Calculation of Road Traffic Noise (CRTN) methodology. 
• Noise mapping data for major transport routes available online from the Department for Environmental Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), as part of a Strategic Noise Mapping exercise.

This may be tricky for developments in rural locations away from transportation noise… but these sites often don’t need a noise assessment anyway.  In busy, city centre or urban locations, this methodology works just fine.