Noise

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31416, 8 July 1967, Page 12

Noise

Sir, —In a recent editorial the “Guardian,” Manchester, says the Building Research Station in England “deserves the gratitude of all town dwellers” because It has established that there is no longer any reason why we should tolerate the piercing din made by pneumatic drills. The work carried out by the station, the “Guardian” says, has shown that the noise made by these machines can perfectly well be reduced by a third or more without any real sacrifice of efficiency. As the “Guardian” says, politicians and officials when pressed to take action to reduce the hubbub of modern life are apt to reply that increasing noise is the inescapable price of technological progress. Here is a case where that excuse no longer applies. Have the authorities here, local and Government, considered making the use of silencers with pneumatic drills compulsory? —Yours, etc..

SQUARE. June 29, 1967. [The City Engineer of Christchurch (Mr P. G. Scoular) replies: “Silencers are available for some makes of equipment. They do reduce their efficiency. So far as I am aware, there has been no consideration to making the use of silencers compulsory. The council’s practice is to use pneumatic drills as little as possible and to do breaking up of asphalt or concrete with heavy equipment.”]