The 65 dBA Question: What If the Noise Was ‘Within Limits’ and Still Intrusive?

One of the most important issues emerging from the record is that ‘within limits’ may not answer the complaint at all.

Broadwick said its Noise Management Plan set a 65 dBA limit at properties on the Tower Hamlets side and that its acoustic consultants monitored compliance. Greenwich separately relayed that Three Spires Acoustics had found the 13 August sound check compliant with agreed limits, even though complaints had already been received in Greenwich and East London and sound was acknowledged to be carrying across the river.

The regulatory question

If substantial low-frequency bass could be experienced inside homes while the event was nevertheless compliant with the agreed numerical regime, that may indicate a weakness in the regime rather than a defence of it.

The councils should therefore identify who proposed the 65 dBA limit, who approved or accepted it, what evidence justified it, whether Tower Hamlets was consulted, what consideration was given specifically to low-frequency sound, what monitoring heights and locations were used, and what happened when compliant readings coincided with continuing residential complaints.

Consultant independence

The present record proves that Joynes Nash were described by Broadwick as ‘our acoustic consultants’ and that they monitored compliance. It does not yet prove that Joynes Nash authored the Noise Management Plan or chose the 65 dBA limit, and the archive will not make that allegation unless documentary evidence establishes it.

The broader independence question remains: what monitoring or technical scrutiny was undertaken by the councils themselves, rather than by consultants engaged by the operator whose compliance was being assessed?