Acoustics case study
Lillibrooke, Maidenhead
Background
SRL Technical Services were appointed to assist Berkeley Strategic Land Ltd (BSLL) to support the planning application for a residential development at Cox Green, Maidenhead. The development consists of approximately 200 dwellings, community sports pitches, and landscaped public green spaces.
Challenge
The development site is approximately 500m to the east of White Waltham Airfield, which is a busy grass airfield operating three runways, mainly accommodating light to medium propeller aircraft. Due to the proximity and altitude of the flights taking off and landing from this airfield, specific concerns were raised prior to the planning application regarding the potential noise impact aircraft could have on the future residences.
Through discussions with the airfield, it was confirmed that activity at the time of the survey was typical, and over the one month measurement period, more than 500 light aircraft flights took place.
BSLL also proposed casual playing fields on the development site and RBWM were concerned about the impact of the noise that these fields would create, particularly on existing noise sensitive receptors.
Solution
The data SRL gathered at this site demonstrated that noise levels would be sufficiently low that all dwellings could achieve suitable indoor ambient noise levels without acoustically enhanced building envelope specifications (and therefore reducing project costs). As such, we have supported our client through a potentially complex planning application and have alleviated the noise-related concerns raised by Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (RBWM) from the outset of the project.
As the use of the playing fields is considered to be informal (i.e. they will not be organised sporting events), we were able to demonstrate that these pitches will create a low impact and subsequently avoided the need for a solid barrier around the playing fields.
