Comparing like for like: noise myths around Badgerys

Looking at the noise maps in my previous post and comparing them to both Sydney Airport noise maps and Badgerys flight paths made me sceptical of the Badgerys noise maps provided. It made me realise there are two commonly used myths about Badgerys used by the proponents of the proposal with relation to noise when promoting the airport which I believe have been very misleading to the community of Western Sydney.  I have particular concerns for the suburbs of Glenmore Park, St Clair and Erskine Park along with new suburbs being built towards the south-east of the airport.

The two myths that I think need to be put to rest when comparing Badgerys to Sydney Airport are:

•  That the buffer zone around the Badgerys airport dispels noise as an issue for suburbs in Western Sydney.
•  That noise follows the direction of the runways chosen (e.g for Option A that noise will be concentrated south west and north east of the Badgerys site. If your within 15km of the site your pretty sure to be hit with noise impacts.

At the time of writing my previous post I took the noise maps provided at face value. However looking at it more closely in correlation with the flight paths I became concerned. As one example I've provided two pictures to compare below - the noise map and the flight paths used to derive it.

• N70 Noise Map for Option A Operation 1
• Proposed flight paths for Option A Operation 1 

If you couldn't guess my concern by looking at the above maps it's pretty straightforward - despite the flight paths going in all directions the N70 maps don't seem to reflect this and show most of the noise going north-west and south-east. While this wouldn't make sense to the average observer - don't those other flights create noise as well? - I think this is probably due to their high threshold of more than 10 movements a day in each direction. This has the effect of trimming all but the most used flight path (this flight path is used approximately only 30% of the time on EIS numbers).


The Western Sydney Airport Alliance, as part of encouraging the airport mentions that the nearest suburb on the flight path for Badgerys is equivalent in distance to North Ryde from Sydney Airport (pg 6) which is approximately 15km. Of course while they mention it like it is a good thing I note that all suburbs between North Ryde and the airport (Drummoyne, Hunters Hill, Lane Cost West, etc) all complain about aircraft noise and are probably the main beneficiaries of Badgerys Creek airport. So to put this statement to test I went to see if I could get any data about the noise impacts at North Ryde.

Sure enough AirServices Australia have done the work for me (see http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/wp-content/uploads/Short_Term_Monitoring_Program_North_Ryde_NSW_-_May_2013_V4.pdf). The report makes for some very good reading for Western Sydney residents particularly in the suburbs of Glenmore Park and St Clair/Erskine Park who reside within 15km or less from Badgerys on the proposed Badgerys Creek Option A flight paths. I would encourage local residents to read it - at the very least it will prove that planes are still very loud in general.


The most memorable part of the report is obviously in the summary: that the Max DB is around 88.7db that you will experience with the average of 70.2db. At that average you will be interrupted in conversation whilst inside your house and without curfews you won't be able to sleep either. All this and your not even on the main flight path!

The buffer zone around Badgerys reduces the very extreme of noise but still is not big enough to reduce the impact on your day-to-day life from aircraft noise. Personally I find these noise maps almost useless - as a community member I want to know whether I could be woken up by a particular sound more so than how often - i.e if one of those flights on your flight path is at night your not going to sleep well.


Conclusion: Don't at this stage trust the noise maps - well at least not the ones provided by the EIS - if your in a flight path you will be affected and it will be noisy. That's all you need to know. Without a curfew this impact will be more severely felt by residents within 15-20km from the airport.