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Its not until you live on the flight path to an airport that you can really appreciate the noise that comes with aircraft landing & taking off. Even though, I happen to live approximately 3 & half miles away from the runway the jets that pass overhead appear to be incredibly low.

I have lived in the same inner city area for 7 years now, which you could describe as a medium size city with its airport situated just on the outskirts. I have grown to put up with the increased number of flights over the years, especially during the summer months as the Great British Get-a-way springs into life.

It wasn't until recently when suffering from a prolapsed disc which left me bed bound for six weeks that the interruptions of aircraft engine noise had really struck me & how invasive it was. Being confined to my bed, I eventually found myself counting the flights from first thing in the morning until last thing at night. Sadder still I timed the noise from its faint approach to its overhead roar & then to its gentle & welcomed fade into the distance. So at 40 seconds from start to finish, 20 seconds of which is time spent not being able to hear normal volume of audible speech, TV or radio. The most flights in one day was 24 & on an average day would be around 15 to 20 flights.

So interestingly, on a very busy day, 8 minutes are lost to being deafened. This leads to missing parts of conversations which is frustrating at the best of times, especially when conducting busy on the telephone, I find myself cowering towards the centre of my home away from windows and outer doors to let myself be heard or for that matter to hear what is being said at the other end of the line. Also, it is an added disruption to my work as I work from home at a computer.

So we do the maths, that's 56 minutes a week, 3 hours 44 minutes a month & a staggering 1 day 17 hours 28 minutes a year not being able to hear clearly.

We learn to live with these noise interruptions, It's a bit like hearing police sirens going off around the city in the distance, you are aware of the sound but subconsciously ignore it as the norm the same with general road traffic. There is nothing that can be done about it other than to move which is a bit of a drastic measure.

Some may ask why choose to live on an airport flight path ? My answer is the flights were few and far between 7 years ago. My own question would be, what do we accept as tolerable when it comes to noise pollution ? Do I wait until 1 week in my 52 a year is taken up with excessive noise & then start to complain to my MP and the airport itself ? I honestly believe I would be wasting more of my precious time in making a stand and therefore will continue to ignore it the best I can.

Learn more about this author, Matthew Northmore.
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