Keep the noise down!

New research by a BBC correspondent has revealed traffic noise is damaging our health – yet another reason to cut car use in London

According to BBC World Service presenter James Gallagher, noise is an “invisible killer”. It’s causing heart attacks, type 2 diabetes and studies now even link it to dementia.

And yet roughly one third of parks in London, where we go for peace, quiet and fresh air to improve our wellbeing, are severely impacted by traffic noise and pollution. With traffic levels in London much the same as seven years ago,  when CPRE London published research into noise in London’s parks, it’s a problem that isn’t going away.

Public health crisis

Gallagher spoke to Professor Charlotte Clark, from St George’s, University of London, who called it a “public health crisis”, with traffic noise at the heart of it. “There’s really good evidence that traffic noise affects your heart health,” she said.

Gallagher experienced first-hand how noise from traffic affected his stress levels. This is because you have an emotional response to sound, which affects your heart rate and your nervous system. And over time this can have health implications.

Tackling noise in parks

“Lots of things can be done to tackle noise in parks: closing roads at weekends is an option, as happens with The Mall in St James’s Park,” says CPRE London’s Alice Roberts. “Traffic can be removed entirely by rerouting roads. Where this is not possible, the use of noise barriers or natural features can make a major difference to both noise and air pollution. But the best thing would be to dramatically cut down the number of cars in our capital.”

CPRE London campaigns to reduce car use in London, as part of the Healthy Streets Scorecard Coalition. We want to create compact cities where walking, cycling and public transport are the easiest and most popular ways to get around.

Read CPRE London’s research into noise in our parks, here

Find out more about the Healthy Streets Scorecard, here