Noise and tranquility

Environmental noise is the second largest environmental health risk in Western Europe behind poor air quality. Much of this comes from traffic, trains and aeroplanes.

We aim to improve the health benefits of green spaces and the wider public realm in Greater London by promoting tranquility.

• This follows CPRE’s influential 2015 national campaign on rural tranquillity Give Peace a Chance which raised the profile of the issue and secured improvements in national planning policy.
• Noise even impacts on our green spaces and we published our own influential research in 2018 Traffic Noise in London’s Parks on the impact of traffic noise on London’s parks. This revealed that more than a third of London’s parks are severely impacted by traffic noise. See also the report and noise maps maps for each borough’s parks.
• We also coordinate the Healthy Streets Scorecard project which aims to tackle the wide-ranging impacts of car dependence in London, noise being one of these impacts.

We have previously also pressed the London Night Time Commission to protect the peace and quiet of public open space near areas of night-time activity. We also hosted a discussion on Tranquil London at our AGM in 2018 exploring how we can improve opportunities to experience relative tranquillity in the urban environment.