Dual carriageway proposal near prospective house

bouicca21

A friend lives on a major A road.  It’s noisy at the front but you can’t hear anything in the back rooms and it’s surprisingly tranquil at the back.  Noise travels in strange ways and maybe lots depends on angles and on how solid the building is.

Personally I wouldn’t take the risk unless I had to, and like others I suspect that there will be a housing development sooner or later.

EssexHebridean

I'd also question what could happen in years to come if a decision was made to widen that road - very fast 100m away could become sub-50m. It might not appear to be likely "right now" but it's incredibly difficult to judge how things will go moving forwards. 

gingercordial

The effects of visible and invisible particulate emissions from traffic - in particular the impact on the health of children - is becoming much more of a topic of concern.  I don't know if you have children or plan to have them, but if I had an equal choice of a house this close to a main road or one further away, I'd be picking the one further away.  It's not great for adults either!  And I am sure others will think the same which means this house will drop in value as this becomes recognised as even more of a big deal.  Perhaps whatever the developers do will mean it is all somehow funnelled away from the houses but the perception amongst buyers, especially families, will be bad.

born_again

We have a runway 1/4 mile behind us with a field in between. It took 2 weeks into the lockdown before we realised just how quiet it was with no flights & very little traffic on the roads the same distance away.

Any noise just blends into the background after a while.

jonnydeppiwish!

Is it north from the property? What is your prevailing wind?

Section62

gingercordial said:

The effects of visible and invisible particulate emissions from traffic - in particular the impact on the health of children - is becoming much more of a topic of concern.  I don't know if you have children or plan to have them, but if I had an equal choice of a house this close to a main road or one further away, I'd be picking the one further away.  It's not great for adults either!  And I am sure others will think the same which means this house will drop in value as this becomes recognised as even more of a big deal.  Perhaps whatever the developers do will mean it is all somehow funnelled away from the houses but the perception amongst buyers, especially families, will be bad.

The problem with issues like this is, as you point out, about buyer perception.

I was involved in transport planning when the risks of PM10s (and then PM2.5s) was becoming increasingly understood.  I'd say that currently the emerging knowledge of the risks of silica to health are around the same level as knowledge of the PM10/PM2.5 issue was back then.

I don't think it implausible that in 10 or 20 years time some people will be worried about the health impact of living next to ploughed fields, given the potential for silica to become airbourne every time the land is worked.

As it is, planners are already concerned about the level of dust (containing silica) produced during construction projects, and it is normal for planning consents to be conditioned requiring measures to minimise dust creation and the supression of dust that can't be prevented.

It may be that someone buying a property away from busy roads to avoid it being devalued by concerns over particulates from road traffic, actually finds their property devalued by worries about being adjacent to intensively farmed agricultural land.

None of us can reliably predict how buyer perceptions will change over time.  The only thing I would be sure about is not wanting to live next door to a construction site and the filth created while however many new houses are built on those fields... and I'd also not forget the NOx the gas boilers in those houses might be pumping out if they get built before the gas boiler 'ban'.

pinkteapot

The problem is that you don't know how loud it'll be, because the road's not built yet. If it was, you could get a sense of how loud it is in the garden, and whether it's audible inside the house at all. 

I really feel for the owners as it will put a lot of buyers off, but I'm with everyone else and wouldn't buy it. Noise does travel in odd, unpredictable ways and I'd want to know what it sounded like before committing. 

Chemistry777

The cutting, noise reduction fencing,, tree and shrub planting, electric vehicles, prevailing wind will all affect how much noise you experience.   For most people absolute silence is unusual.  Most will have some sort of noise at times.  Road noise, town centre, trains, planes, etc.   And as others have said sometimes a constant low level noise may be more acceptable than intermittent nosier events.