London Battersea Heliport Noise Subjective Survey

A subjective survey in the form or an online survey questionnaire was designed and implemented to
collect information on the perceptions and attitudes of local residents from noise emissions from the
London heliport operation.
The subjective study was intended to complement the objective study (reported in a separate
document) and to allow a comparison of findings between the two. The questionnaire opened on
11 th July 2017 and closed on 30 th September 2017. It collected responses to mostly closed ended
question from the boroughs of Wandsworth, Hammersmith and Fulham (H&F), Kensington and
Chelsea (K&C). The survey questionnaire obtained a high (N=1570) participation rate.
The level of annoyance caused by helicopter noise reported by respondents appears higher than the
level of annoyance attributed to noise measurements at monitoring sites (see noise monitoring
survey report). However it is important to note that many non-acoustical factors (such as location
time of the day, socio economic factors) may influence when expressing attitudes and perception
(annoyance).
The proportion of respondents highly annoyed (%) by helicopter noise in this study was much higher
than the proportion of highly annoyed to aircraft noise reported in a similar survey responded in
2014 by residents living around English airports.
The current complaint handling and recording system appears to be ineffective and underrepresent
the true scale of the impact on affected residents of the noise emissions from the heliport operation.