A large number of local people, across a wide area, have been reporting a mysterious tapping and banging noise ‘like a washing machine on spin cycle’, starting at 8am and ending by 6.30pm. The cause is the current phase of demolition work at Whiteleys as the specialist contractors, Erith, break up the concrete slab under the old shoppers’ car park.
We are working with the contractors and the council’s noise and environmental health officers as they visit affected householders and study the situation to see what can be done. Monitoring records show that the noise, though intrusive and irritating, is well within permitted levels and there has been no breach of permitted working hours.
Paul Millar, the project manager, says ‘It’s a very difficult situation, as you can’t tell exactly how and where noise will travel underground. We will try different machinery, with different and lighter hammers.’ The slab is three metres thick there, and only one metre thick elsewhere, so he thinks this may have been a platform built for a crane in the 1980’s. In that case the noise problem may be at its worst just now, and may improve once that section is completed. It is likely the noise is travelling through drains and tunnels buried deep underground, hence its spread across Lancaster Gate and Bayswater wards.
Erith’s community liaison manager, Cherrie O’Kane, is keen to keep everyone updated and can be contacted as below:
Mobile: 07894259321
Email: cherrie.o’[email protected]
The developers Meyer Bergman intend to provide additional housing at Whiteleys, 50 extra units including 14 affordable flats.
Other key points in their revised plans (Ref.19/02499/FULL on the council’s planning website) are: the loss of 36 public parking spaces, and a new strategy for replacing the original upper-storey windows with lookalike leaded windows bonded to inner double-glazed panels, retaining the old decorative mullions and frames as far as possible.
The developers say the consented scheme to retain the thousands of small glass panes, which have been saved but are largely not reuseable, is too expensive, will take three years and is not practical. Please let us know your views.
