Arise Chelmsford members Create Consulting Engineers are tackling the second largest environmental health risk in Western Europe* and winning awards.

Create Consulting’s Acoustics team won 4 categories at last year’s ANC Awards. These Awards promote and recognise excellence among UK acoustic consultants. 

 

To be accredited with ANC - The Association of Noise Consultants, you need to have a membership with the Institute of Acoustics (IOA) and go through a rigorous selection and interview process. As recent members of the ANC, this was the first time Create Consulting had entered the awards and were delighted to come away with four. These applications were completely anonymous, scored by their peers and awarded on the merit of the content of the applications.

 

Create Consulting won first place for Environmental Noise: Infrastructure. The task involved measuring background noise and vibration levels and predicting future impact from increased construction-related traffic in a sleepy village in Norfolk. The village contained many listed buildings and was the only through route to a site that was constructing the underground cabling between an off-shore windfarm and the associated on-shore substation.

 

The Acoustics team worked with their Norwich branch who measured and predicted the traffic numbers of vehicles, such as HGVs, driving through the village. The Acoustics team did the calculations on the back of this data and then monitored it whilst the construction took place.

 

The outcome was that the noise and vibrations were unacceptably loud, so action needed to be taken, including upgrading the road. Create Consulting worked with contractors to change their methods so it would cause minimal disturbance to the village and it’s residents.

 

According to gov.uk, it is estimated that the annual social cost of urban road noise in England is £7 billion to £10 billion. This places it at a similar magnitude to road accidents (£9 billion) and significantly greater than the impact of climate change (£1 to 4 billion). A report published by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in March 2011 identified environmental noise as the second largest environmental health risk in Western Europe.

 

Jody said:

 

“We won this award for Environmental noise – Infrastructure, as it showed an excellent degree of communication between parties, the research beforehand and the thorough work that Mat and Ben put in on site. We adopted a thorough approach to ensure our calculations were correct. The project shows how specialist acoustic knowledge, prediction and monitoring can help protect our historic villages and towns from modern construction methods, which are more than capable of generating potentially significant levels of vibration.”

 

Another award was won for the category of Environmental noise: Infrastructure. The client wanted to build over 200 flats and apartments, but the businesses on the site boundary were vocal objectors, as they didn’t want future residents complaining of the noise, thus facing fines. These businesses operate 24/7, and HGVs access the site, potentially disrupting future residents.

 

Create Consulting were asked to measure baseline noise levels, and predict how much noise the road traffic and industrial uses will make. To help secure the client’s planning approval, Create Consulting suggested enhanced glazing, mechanical ventilation (so opening windows wasn’t required) and enclosed balconies such as winter gardens.

 

Jody says:

 

“This award was deemed award worthy as it was a great example of theoretical approach to the project.  Nearly all of Create’s 10 disciplines were involved in this project and the collaborative approach really helped to successfully deliver this project for our client.”

    

The Create Acoustics Team received “highly commended” and “commended” for two other awards.  One was for a collaboration between Create Consulting and another Arise member, Real 8, for a new Clay pigeon sports facility in Essex; The other was to assist with the planning application for a new three story building which wouldn’t meet the right sound levels due to an old and dilapidated chiller offsite. The chiller was replaced, saving their client £1000s of pounds in building adaptations.

 

Arise Innovation Hubs Director, Beverley Vaughan, said "Our changing modern world poses new risks to our human health and wellbeing. We are pleased to support businesses who recognise the wide range of innovative solutions needed to enable development while protecting healthy communities. A massive congratulations to Create Consulting for winning these awards."

 

Create have applied for the ANC 2024 Awards with some more exciting entries and are hopeful to secure more wins in the future. Find out more about Create Consulting.

 

*according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) in March 2011 environmental noise was the second largest environmental health risk in Western Europe"