Project Outline

The London Borough of Tower Hamlets (LBTH)  instructed Temple to undertake Noise Mapping. This includes a review of archived reports to extract relevant information and XY co-ordinates so historic surveys could be mapped and added to LBTH’s new ‘noise map’. Temple also provided a draft guide on how to interpret the data including assumptions and limitations and a draft proforma to be included with LBTH’s planning pack to make adding future information to the map easier.

What was the challenge?

LBTH required a noise consultant to give additional context and use their expertise to identify the relevant acoustic data within the historic reports.  There were over 100 reports issued to Temple by LBTH dating back to 2005 by a large number of different consultancies of differing quality. The biggest challenge was making sure a consistent dataset was presented (for example making sure all measurements were correct to free-field) and relevant context was also provided in a format suitable for a database.

LBTH also required a draft guide for the website where the information was hosted which needed to convey the technical aspects as well as the assumptions and limitations of what is presented in the noise map in an easy-to-understand way.

Being able to extract and add future data was also of concern to LBTH as they wanted to streamline the process for future planning submissions without the assistance of a noise consultant to review and pick the correct data.

The Outcome

Temple provided a systematic approach to reviewing the reports provided by LBTH and a framework of how to process the data to ensure a consistent outcome. A database of information compatible with ArcMap GIS was drafted which ‘normalised’ all of the data and made note of any important context to do with the survey. To ensure data was properly checked, Temple created a system to automatically check the data inputted into each field of the completed dataset which flagged any values outside of the normal range (i.e. checking day noise levels are higher than night levels etc.). Additionally, a system of manual checking was also put in place whereby data was reviewed and checked by at least two consultants and 1 in 5 were reviewed by an additional consultant. Data was then shared via an online platform to allow easy comment and access by LBTH in a format compatible with their GIS system.

Temple provided a draft guide for the website to describe what is being shown in easy to understand language along with the assumptions and limitations of the dataset.

A draft pro-forma excel template to be used as part of the LBTH planning pack was also provided. The template was designed so that applicants could fill it in when submitting acoustics reports containing baseline information so this can be simply added to the map in a way that is consistent with the historical data already added.

Temple provided an innovative and accurate solution to the manual task of checking and extracting data from over 100 pdf’s. We used our technical expertise to extract the relevant data and give context to the final dataset. We assisted LBTH along the process and provided guides and templates so that future submissions could be added in-house without the need for review by a noise consultant.