Complaints over noise in St Asaph

Dec 4 2008 by Steve Stratford, North Wales Weekly News

Noise is like bee trapped in a jam jar

A ST ASAPH resident has spoken of her ordeal living with a constant buzzing noise that very few other residents can hear.

Joanne Ellison, of Ashley Court, said the humming sound has been making life a nightmare for herself and other residents, and has been causing a problem since October, 2007.

“I’ve had lots of people come to try and help me with the problem, but nothing has worked so far and I don’t know what to do. It’s very frustrating,” she said.

“The first thing people always ask me is if it’s just my hearing, but I know that one of my friends and some other residents can also hear it, although a lot of them mistake it for other noises. The best way to describe is like hearing a bee trapped inside a jam jar, or a generating station in the distance.”

Mrs Ellison, 42, said the noise has been heard for over 18 months, but in the past few weeks has increased in severity and has been making her life a misery and causing sleepless nights for herself and other St Asaph residents.

She also says that as well as her home town, the noise – technically described as low frequency noise – can be heard in other locations in North Wales such as Abergele and Colwyn Bay, but is only audible to a small percentage of the population.

“I’ve done a lot of research and it’s been shown low frequency noise does exist and does affect people’s lives, but it’s very hard when everyone else just dismisses it or thinks I’m mad,” she added.

“I don’t want to take legal action against anyone who might be causing the noise, but I do want to find out more about it so maybe more can be done to help stop it in future.”

Dr Andy Moorhouse, an audio scientist at Salford University who has conducted a study into low frequency noise, said the Government was working more with local authorities to help combat the problem but said it is still unsatisfactory for many UK residents.

“Many local authorities have complaints about low frequency noise which are notoriously difficult to deal with,” he said.