Noise; final report : Presented to the Parliament ... July 1963.
- Great Britain. Committee on the Problem of Noise
- Date:
- [1963]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Noise; final report : Presented to the Parliament ... July 1963. Source: Wellcome Collection.
15/256 page 1
![Introduction 1. We faced our task of examining the problem of noise with, for the most part, no special knowledge of the subject. This lack was in a sense an advantage, for it enabled us to see the problem from the point of view of the layman, and noise affects us all, laymen and specialists alike. We hope, therefore, that our conclusions and recommendations represent fairly the reaction of the ordinary citizen to noise, and the degree of trouble and expense he would approve to mitigate it. 2. We have had the continuous help of assessors, and other expert advice was fully available to us. We hope that in making our recommendations we have sufficiently recognised the difficulties that face the specialists who would be called upon to implement many of the measures that we propose. 3. We have received evidence from many sources; private individuals, local authorities, associations of citizens of various kinds, representatives of industry, specialist and technical bodies. The evidence has ranged from personal complaints to closely reasoned arguments based on measurable facts affecting many thousands of people. In attempting to draw useful conclusions from this mass of material, we have selected particular prob- lems for closer study, e.g. noise from aircraft, from motor vehicles, in buildings, etc. The subject is so wide, and the sources of noise so varied, that we have often found it necessary to divide into sub-committees. The three main sub-committees were those appointed to examine noise from aircraft, from industry and from surface transport. Their respective chair- men were Mr. F. B. Greatrex, Mr. L. H. A. Pilkington and Dr. A. Fogg. 4. Both as a Committee, and as sub-committees, we have attempted to gain first-hand experience of certain matters by visits, experiments and demonstrations ; and we have to acknowledge our debt to the companies and other organisations, both government and private, who helped us. We also owe thanks to the Motor Industry Research Association and to the Government Departments and laboratories who carried out specialized investigations at our request; to the local authorities who completed the questionnaires that we sent to them ; and to several individual experts who have advised and assisted us. We also wish to thank all those who gave evidence (see Appendix I). 5. Our Assessors undertook many special investigations for us, and helped us in the critical appraisal both of the papers submitted and of our proposals at the formative stages in our discussions. The evidence presented to us was so large and varied in content that a very heavy load fell upon the Secretariat, who maintained an admirable service throughout the three years’ existence of the Committee. We wish to express our great appreciation of the work both of the Assessors and of the Secretariat. ]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32177756_0015.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
