Noise & Vibration case study

Carew Academy

Background

Kier was appointed to deliver the new Carew Academy, a special educational needs and disability (SEND) school for pupils in the London Borough of Sutton.

The two storey, 5000m2 facility offers a wide variety of special learning spaces that combine art, drama, food technology, music, sports, science, life skills, information and communication technology (ICT) facilities with a full range of on-site therapies including speech and language therapy, emotional literacy, and occupational therapy.

Challenge

Constructing the building posed challenges to Kier with regard to the environmental impact of the works. With it being a tight site, surrounded by residential properties, ensuring that noise, vibration and dust did not cause a disturbance to the neighbours was a significant concern.

Solution

SRL assisted by compiling Kier’s Section 61 (Control of Pollution Act 1974) Applications, submitted to and subsequently approved by the London Borough of Sutton. These Applications contained a proposed methodology to minimise the potential disturbance to the surrounding residents and a scheme of monitoring for noise and vibration, to demonstrate compliance with established thresholds.

Together with the consequent prior consent notices, our dedicated monitoring team installed and managed a number of monitoring stations around site. These monitors communicated wirelessly to an online web portal in real time and issued live alerts to multiple stakeholders upon any exceedance of the established noise, vibration (or dust) thresholds. This enabled an immediate investigation and the identification of mitigation measures to minimise the potential for disturbance.