High Speed 2 Railway Line: Noise

(asked on 15th March 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assurances have they received from HS2 Ltd that they will not seek to derogate responsibilities on noise limits set out in its information paper E20: Control of Airborne Noise from Altered Roads and the Operational Railway, published on 30 July 2014, should HS2 operational noise levels exceed agreed noise limits.


Answered by
Baroness Vere of Norbiton Portrait
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
This question was answered on 25th March 2021

HS2 Ltd will build on the work of existing high speed networks, utilising best practice from other European high speed projects, and improving on those railways where it is possible to do so. HS2 Information Paper F4: Operational Noise and Vibration Monitoring Framework sets out HS2 Ltd’s commitments to monitor the noise and vibration performance of the operational railway. Paragraph 3.2 describes the actions to be taken where the performance deviates from the expected conditions:

a) If the measured performance is better than the expected conditions:

- A study to document the reasons why assets are achieving a higher performance than expected

- A review of further improvements to other assets that could potentially benefit from the technology transfer of the high performing assets

b) If the measured performance is worse than the expected conditions:

- A study to identify the root cause and all possible solutions to the low performance

- An investigation of other similar assets that could also be underperforming

- Corrective action to improve existing performance and prevent future loss of performance so far as this may be required to achieve the objectives set out in the Information Papers E20, E21 and E22

The relevant paragraphs of Information paper F4 are included as binding assurances (numbers 1041 and 1042) on the public register of HS2 Undertakings and Assurances.

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