Entries Tagged 'Ipswich Port Noise Abatement' ↓

Due to my activity with the Noise Action Group, Ipswich Council has invited me and a few other people concerned with the noise to join a newly formed focus group “focus group” made up of residents, councilors and council officers.

While this group will have no power it can help the council form its responses to the various issues arising from the port.  We should try to make this work.  Please could you pass me and concerns you have about the noise from the port or about any other issue that concern the port, and I will pass these concerns on.

My email is james@bridgeward.org.uk

Is it me or are Southern Cement being quieter recently?  I’ve definitely had fewer complaints.

Is it some permanent change that they’ve made, an operational change that can be quickly reversed or is it some environmental factor connected to the weather over which they have no control.

The frustrating thing is that they are not talking to anyone and so we don’t have a clue.

(By the way a big hello to Barclays Bank, who’ve been looking up Southern Cement on the internet recently.  Make sure your Corporate Social Responsibility department get them to talk to the residents.)

I’m just digesting the port noise FAQs that have been put up on the Ipswich Council website.  They’re not easy to find, so here’s a direct link (they are in PDF format, so you’ll have to have Adobe Acrobat).

I’m digesting them now, but here’s something that caught my eye:

The following trials have been carried out:

Now the obvious question is why isn’t Southern Cement letting people know?  If it did that it wouldn’t be so unpopular.  And surely ABP Ipswich, who are going to suffer from this unpopularity and distrust for years to come, could be telling people.

Letters have been dropping through doors in Bridge recently asking people who have expressed interest in the port noise.  The council wants to  set up a port liaison group with ABP, local residents and councillors.  However this coverage have been somewhat inevitably patchy, so if you think you would be good for the port liaison group then contact me at james@bridgeward.org.uk and I will try to pass your details on.

Southern Cement were good for a while with very few complaints, and in the last two unloading they’ve created a racket.  And they were less than a week apart.

Apparently they’ve been chided for their use of contract labour which changes operators regularly.  Looks like they’ve chosen badly this time.  If the operator could speak English at all this time.  They don’t tend to be local, these casually employed operators.

BBC Look East were publicising a public meeting about the Southern Cement noise in Ipswich today.  There is as far as we know no such meeting.

There is a meeting of Babergh district council which is discussing the noise.  Email me if you need any further information.

One thing that is commonly said to the council about the port noise is that the cement hoover has sound proof casing.  Can you see it?  Me neither.

Now, I’m not saying they weren’t doing anything, but if they only talked to the residents – like just about any similar company does – then they would be able to show us what they are doing.  Instead they are leaving themselves to the mercy of telescopic lenses.

Isn’t it funny how the cement ship’s in the day after the public meeting?  I wonder if there was a deliberate delay?

We will be talking about this to the Maidenhall Residents’ Association at the Bowls Pavilion in Halifax Road at 7pm tonight.  (If you are not from Maidenhall then please remember that this will not be solely about the noise).

There’s been some media reaction to the meeting yesterday.

Radio Suffolk and Town 102 both publicised the event.  Here is the Mark Murphy show that has me (24 minutes in) and Matthew Ling of the Environment Services (1 hour 37 minutes in)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p004kwht/Mark_Murphy_06_10_2009/

We also got a write up of the meeting from the Evening Star:

http://www.eveningstar.co.uk/content/eveningstar/news/story.aspx?brand=ESTOnline&category=News&tBrand=ESTOnline&tCategory=xDefault&itemid=IPED07%20Oct%202009%2006:18:54:530

They estimated about 100.  I’d say it was closer to  (actually slightly over) 150, having done church attendance counting almost every week for the last four years.  Still packed.

It’s such a shame that the Labour supporter Chris Ward had to put in such an ignorant response:

Just finished the noise meeting which was quite productive.  There were about 150 people there.

Some of the highlights:

• No one from Southern Cement wanted to speak or identify themselves, which was expected.  No one from the Port of Ipswich did either, which was disappointing.
• There are plenty of people outside the Noise Action Group who are very angry.  If Southern Cement and Uniland think that these people won’t cause problems if they’re snubbed, then Associated British Ports after the animal rights protests will have a different idea.  Dialogue with the Noise Action Group will keep hot heads cool.
• It was nice of Chris Mole to turn up, but he gave a poor speech.
• Phil Smart gave a better speech than Chris Mole, and had the germ of a good idea with getting residents to talk to the port in general.
• There were lots of ideas for quietening the operation, some better than others.
• Nadia Cenci, who suffers from the noise, gave a great speech, asking not why, but how, to sue Southern Cement and Associated British Ports to close them down.  Again this is another worse alternative than dialogue.
• There are people miles away who hear this.  We knew that, but we found more.
• The dust is an emerging issue which is angering a lot of
• Council officers sounded well and truly peeved with Southern Cement’s refusal to talk to residents.  After all at times they were being abused because Southern Cement won’t talk.
• Only one person refused to give their contact details at the end of the meeting.

So Southern Cement, I know that you read this blog, and I know you want a way out.  It’s d-i-a-l-o-g-u-e .  It’s better than being shut down.