London Environment Strategy consultation

I would love to find peace and quiet in my house-I live on a supposedly quiet residential street,but noise from rat runners bombing up and down our street wakes us up in the morning,prevents us from using our living room during the day and affects our enjoyment of our garden.
Would love to see more quiet streets for people to live on and a clamp down on rat running.

Can we do something about the use of powered leaf blowers ? I see them even in cemeteries, and all they do is blow the leaves (and harmful dust no doubt) around. I never see them used to vacuum.

They are of course noisy but actually my bigger concern is CO2 and climate change.

Some cities are stopping them.

London is probably the music capital of the world and seriously good musicians travel from all over the world just to play here, often in small venues like bars and the backs of pubs. (And it's also an important attraction for millions of tourists).
What I really object to is when established music venues have their live music licences refused because someone's built a block of flats nearby and the new residents - who have chosen to move there in the full knowledge that they would be living next to a live music venue - then try to complain. There's a large clubhouse behind my house which often holds parties with music into the early hours. If I don't like that, I shouldn't have moved here, and I certainly shouldn't try to stop others having their fun, even if it does keep me awake on occasions.
This is London. If people are sensitive to the noise they should get better sound insulation, maybe buy themselves some earplugs, or think a bit more about where they would really like to live. And there are plenty of quiet places to live in Greater London if you look for them.

I run a project called Tranquil City that encourages the exploration of calm in London. We're crowdsourcing tranquil spaces to share them with all. Check out our map here to discover tranquil spaces near you and help contribute to the map www.tranquilcity.co.uk.

We've had lot of interest in the project from the public, sharing their quiet locations and talking about how they could be improved. I believe that peace and quiet can be found in lots of location around the city, and there is a lot of potential for more spaces to be created and maintained.

We've even created a quiet map of the city, called the Tranquil Pavement, enabling us to find quiet and tranquil routes around London, which also means that we can reduce our exposure to air pollution (strong correlation between traffic noise and high air pollution).

The biggest difficulty I find with experiencing peace and quiet is usually due to other people. Car stereos. People shouting on mobile phones. People shouting in the street in general. House stereos. Even when asking politely for people to turn down their car stereos when they are parked right outside my window I have experienced general rudeness and disregard for other people. Additionally some neighbors feel it is appropriate to play their music really loudly in their homes so the whole street can hear late into the night. There is no support for people dealing with these issues. The council doesn't do anything nor do the police.

Local green spaces, like common land and wild areas, full of birdsong, on the edges of Blackheath, or Greenwich Park and Greenwich Peninsula Ecology Park, for example, offer some escape from noise pollution and some peace.

Negatives are traffic and the constant helicopter flights low over the area, circling every few minutes at peak times. This is including the London Helicopter which originates in Battersea, which is making lots of money by disturbing the peace for thousands of locals and visitors to Greenwich Park and the surrounding neighbourhood.

The increase in paid-for music events is another negative, such as the big ticket-only music festival that has recently started every September on public land in Blackheath. The noise itself lasts for 2 days and carries for miles and there's nothing anyone can do to get them to reduce it. The public land is occupied by them for 2 weeks in total, during which ordinary people cannot use that green space, a real shame. Very sad to see public green space fenced off for private profit.

More needs to be done to protect Londoners from unnecessary noise, especially when it is a small minority making profits at the expense of everyone else. Noise pollution affects stress levels and concentration, as well as quality of life. Thank you for looking into this issue.

Generally the only place to find peace and quiet outside of the home is in another building e.g. museum, art gallery etc. There is no peace and quiet in any built up area of London due to traffic noise, construction noise, aircraft noise, helicopter noise and worse of all, sirens used by emergency vehicles which use a completely unnecessary level of high volume to the point they must damage the hearing of pedestrians and cyclists when they drive past. Not only are they too loud, they are used when there isnt an emergency just to beat a target time imposed on them. I have also seen two or more vehicles travelling together, both with their siren on - completely unnecessary and so is using them when there is NO traffic e.g. at night. Go travel on the continent and you wont find this problem because they seem to care more about their environment than we do in London and the UK.

As long as the Mayor allows and protects off-shore (=careless and non-locals) to own property, nothing will change:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/01/empty-homes-normal-rule…
http://uk.businessinsider.com/london-properties-increasingly-registered…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/splash-copy-75dwrs0qk

This has been reported in the press for many years. Please, Mr Khan, take these careless companies "to town".

Thank you.

I am lucky having a quiet garden SW London but live nearer a hospital and as soon as I step on the main road it is the sirens that I find truly stressful. I suppose they must be loud and high and piecing to overcome the loud music many drivers will have inside their cars, but it really is a nightmare when shopping or walking in the main road and wish there was some solution.

There is not much peace and quiet where I live, except late at night. But with the 24 hour city we will lose this, and there will be no chance of getting even on good night's sleep per week. The Mayor and the road transport lobby want to lift the restrictions on deliveries through the night. Our residential street is also a deliveries bay for Oxford Street stores, so we will have hours of deliveries keeping us awake night after night. But where to go for peace and quiet? The parks are too noisy and polluted with traffic fumes. There are no more relaxed quiet cafes that would not mind someone sitting for a longer period, reading or working on a laptop - they are all crowded, noisy and wanting a high and fast turnover of customers.

It is very difficult to find peace and quiet where I live in Angel. The few green spaces are very small making it difficult to get away from traffic noise or children playing noisily. The canal used to be peaceful but has seen an explosion in use over recent years from a significant expansion of people living on boats and the increasing number of cafes and pubs using the towpath as an outdoor extension. But the biggest noise intrusions into my home have been roadworks and construction during the day and police helicopters at night.

I would do anything to be able to find a place where I could hear little other than the sound of birds chirping.
I live in a part of London where little importance is put upon peace and quiet.
Housing estates are built to a poor standard with little or no noise insulation and people move in with their irritating children who run around which invades my home and deprives me of the peace and quiet I desire.
I will end by saying that anyone who wants to live somewhere they can enjoy peace and quiet
don't come to Wembley park because you will be disappointed and will certainly regret the day you decided to move into this haven of neglect deprivation and never ending the torment.
Trust me because I have lived in this area for almost 30 years and every day I feel miserable and frustrated for want of quality and peace.