Local campaign gets Glasgow airport to pay up to £8 million to sound insulate 800 badly affected homes
Glasgow Airport is to pay out up to £8m over the next 5 years to help with noise insulation costs for the 800 homes near its runway. The assistance packages, worth around £10,000 per home, will be used to help pay for triple glazing and loft insulation. Recent studies showed aircraft noise levels experienced at night by residents in some areas exceeded substantially the safe levels approved by the World Health Organisation. However they were deemed not high enough to allow properties to qualify for compensation. The airport’s owner, AGS Airports, has agreed to reduce the qualifying level for support to homes experiencing the noise, from 66 decibels to 63dB. The effort to improve the situation, particularly in Whitecrook, Clydebank, where the worst levels were recorded, has been driven by a long running campaign by SNP MSP, Gil Paterson. Allegedly the insulation in the loft cut the noise level in a bedroom below to 50dB. when it had been 63dB, with the noise outside at 84dB. It is claimed that upgrading double glazing to triple glazing further cut the noise to 45dB (as long as no window opened ….. and still deafening in the garden ….)
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Glasgow Airport to aid noise reduction methods near its runway after campaign
13.5.2018 (Glasgow Evening Times)
GLASGOW Airport is to pay out up to £8m over the next five years to help with noise insulation costs for the 800 homes near its runway.
The assistance packages, worth around £10,000 per home, will be used to help pay for triple glazing and loft insulation.
Recent studies showed aircraft noise levels experienced at night by residents in some areas exceeded substantially the safe levels approved by the World Health Organisation.
However they were deemed not high enough to allow properties to qualify for compensation.
However, the airport’s owner, AGS Airports, has agreed to reduce the qualifying level for support to homes experiencing the noise, from 66 decibels to 63.
The effort to improve the situation, particularly in Whitecrook, Clydebank, where the worst levels were recorded, has been driven by a long running campaign by SNP MSP, Gil Paterson.
Mr Paterson spent more than £3,000 of his own money into work carried out on one of his constituent’s homes, funding a triple-glazing unit and loft insulation.
Before the work was carried out, noise levels in the bedroom reached the new 63 decibels qualifying level.
The addition of loft insulation reduced the level to 50 decibels, and replacing double-glazing with triple-glazing further reduced the levels to 45 decibels.
A sound-check outside the house, however, recorded a noise of 84 decibels.
Mr Paterson said: “I thought this was incredibly important to improve the quality of life in a community that is one of the poorest in Scotland.
“It’s internationally recognised that sleep deprivation has a knock-on effect of additional ill health in communities.
“The risk of strokes, heart disease and cardiovascular disease is up to 30 per cent greater in higher noise areas.
He added: ‘Some of the houses are practically at the end of the runway.
“When a plane is coming in to land, it’s so close you feel as though you could reach out and touch it. I was fortunate that I was able to afford to put my own money into this research.’
He was assisted by sound engineer Ruben McLean, who gave his services for free to test noise levels.
Mr Paterson said: “I’m incredibly grateful to the couple that allowed me to use their home, to Ruben McLean for putting me right on everything to do with sound, and to the locals who supported our efforts.
“I also want to give AGS credit for reducing the noise level.”
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