Towards Soud Agenda Setting

Towards sound agenda setting

Towards sound

agenda setting

Research project for the Working Group Noise of

Eurocities, DCMR Environmental Protection Agency Rijnmond (Greater Rotterdam Area), Dutch Ministery

of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM)

May 2009

W. Witteveen, A.F.M.M. Souren

Environmental Protection Agency

Parallelweg 1

P.O. Box 843

3100 AV Schiedam

The Netherlands

T +31 10 - 246 80 00

F +31 10 - 246 82 83

E

I

Please do refer properly; with title, author and dates, whenever you make us of text of findings of the report.

Drs. (MSc.) Wouter Witteveen, Archipelhof 74, 6524 LE Nijmegen

Dr. Astrid F.M.M. Souren, Institute ISIS, Radbout Universiteit Nijmegen, P.O.Box 9010, 9600 GL Nijmegen

Towards soud agenda setting Blad 3 van 31

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Working Group Noise of Eurocities project and to DCMR Environmental Protection Agency Rijnmond (Greater Rotterdam Area) and the Dutch department for the Environment (Ministerie van VROM) for facilitating this research and for their financial support for the main author of this report. We thank Radboud University Nijmegen for time made available for the second author.

Special thanks go to Mr. Henk Wolfert of the DCMR Environmental Protection Agency Rijnmond (Greater Rotterdam Area) and also the chairman of the Working Group Noise, who has put a great deal of effort into arranging funding for this project and who has also been a great supporter and advisor throughout. Further thanks go to Ms.Miriam Weber, head of the noise department at DCMR, for comments on previous versions and showing the ropes. The report would not have had the empirical substance without the contribution of all who have found time in their busy schedules to contribute to this research in the form of an interview. Many of you have provided us with additional information and feedback.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Summary

1 Introduction

1.1Exploring the issue

1.2Technical difficulty not the main issue

1.3Priority of noise; high or low?

2 Factors for a low priority

2.1Lack of willingness to tackle noise

2.1.1 More “visual” issues are perceived as more urgent

2.1.2 Lack of trust in the scientific evidence for a link between noise and health problems

2.1.3 Noise is often labelled as subjective

2.1.4 Conflict with other (economic) interests

2.2The effectiveness of measures against noise

2.2.1 Technical measures have been countered

2.2.2 Technical measures not aiming at the source

2.2.3 Lack of clarity on a suitable unit for the effects of noise

2.2.4 Lack of a clear limit value

3 Agenda setting

3.1Problem definition and different agenda’s

3.2The public agenda

3.2.1 Lack of pressure groups

3.3The media agenda

3.4The policy agenda

3.4.1 European policy agenda

3.4.2 The national agenda

3.4.3 Local policy agenda

3.4.4 Noise maps and action plans, a missed opportunity?

3.5How the agenda’s seem to influence each other

3.6The issue attention cycle

3.6.1 Policy and the issue attention cycle

4 Suggestions

4.1Making connections

4.1.1 Connection between noise annoyance and health

4.1.2 Connection between noise and other environmental issues

4.1.3 Connection with the media

4.1.4 Connection between the public and policy

4.1.5 Connection between the different levels of policy

4.2Current measures

4.2.1 Visibility of measures

4.2.2 Opportunities within the END

5 References

Summary

A series of interviews with experts from the field of noise was conducted to gain insight into the position of noise on the policy agenda. This analysis has led to suggestions on how to improve this position. The conclusions and suggestions made in this report are (to a certain extent) also applicable to other environmental issues.

Although noise has gained some momentum on the European policy agenda over the last decade, several experts have voiced the concern that the effects of environmental noise on public health are such that noise should have a higher position on the agenda.

Factors explaining this low priority can be grouped into two categories. Firstly, there seems to be a lack of willingness among policy makers / politicians to tackle noise. This is caused by the existence of other topics that are perceived as more urgent, a lack of belief in the scientific evidence for a link between noise and health problems, and the subjective aspect of noise annoyance.

The second category of factors for a low priority for noise is: doubt on the effectiveness of available measures. Technical measures that effectively reduce the level of noise are often ineffective in decreasing noise annoyance. Furthermore, the achieved reduction of noise produced by an individual source has often been countered by an increase in the number of individual sources. Other factors in this category are: the lack of a clear unit to express the effects of noise in, and the lack of an EU legal limit value. .

When considering the priority of noise with policy, it is also important to consider the position of noise on the public (and the media) agenda. These different agenda’s and their different definitions of the noise problem influence each other. Due to the “invisible nature” of the consequences of noise on health, these consequences are equally hard to imagine for the public as they are for policy. The annoyance aspect however is something that people experience every day and is therefore the public’s number one noise issue. Due to the local nature of noise, the local policy level is often considered by the public as well as by national and European policy to be responsible for solving these problems. However, local policy does not always have the necessary expertise, means and position to deal with noise problems.

To raise the profile of noise, we suggest that noise should develop from a ‘stand alone issue’ towards an integral part of environmental concerns. That requires connections between noise and related environmental issues with related effects: health effects and annoyance. We also suggest that connections between the different levels of policy (local, national and European), stakeholders in policy, media and the public are further developed on noise related issues. Current measures and the European Environmental Noise Directive provide ample opportunities to do so. These connections could be the means for increased attention for noise. Once these connections are established, resources can be joined leading to the design of measures that are more effective and have a broader general acceptance. Our work has shown that the technical complexity of noise is not a crucial factor explaining the low priority of noise; many environmental issues that are high on the agenda are equally complex.

1Introduction

At the spring meeting 2007 of the Working Group Noise (WGN) of Eurocities in Birmingham the concern was voiced that noise does not have the priority it deserves on the (policy) agenda. This concern was based on the observation that while noise, especially long lasting noise, can have an impact on the public’s quality of life, a large number of the available solutions to the problem remain unused. The WGN felt that the major factor for the low priority on the agenda is a lack of understanding among policy makers and / or politicians of the difficult technical information in reports on noise. As we will see in this report, these views do not represent the entire truth. In fact, it seems that a lack of understanding of technical information is not a major factor at all. It is also debatable whether the priority for noise is indeed as low as suggested, although it is obvious that noise does not receive the same attention and resources that a problem such as air pollution receives. The research described in this report therefore set out to:

•identify the factors that lead to a lower attention for noise

•formulate suggestions to deal with these factors

1.1Exploring the issue

The most important part of this research consisted of a series of semi-structured interviews with various experts. To get a clear overview of the various aspects of noise, its place on the (policy) agenda, and the various actors involved, the range of noise experts was made as wide as possible. For example, to assess the priority of noise on the policy agenda, experts from local, national and European policy as well as representatives of organisations that lobby at these respective levels of policy have been interviewed. Also, in order to get a clear understanding of the current status of the evidence on the various effects of noise, a number of scientists ranging from the fields of environmental health, environmental socio-economics, acoustics and transport safety were interviewed. The respondents are (in alphabetical order):

Eddie Alders - FME CWM, Dutch organisation for entrepreneurs in the technological industrial sector

Eva Banos - environment policy officer of Eurocities

Guus Berkhout - professor of Innovation Management at the Technical University Delft, former head of the Commission of Experts on Aircraft Noise (Schiphol Airport)

Hans Blokland - MEP for the IND / DEM Group, vice president of the European Parliament’s environment commission

Steve Crawshaw* - Bristol City Council, involved in Bristol’s noise mapping for the SILENCE project

Marco Dingemans - coordinator of the communications department at DCMR Environmental

Protection Agency Rijnmond (Greater Rotterdam Area)

Martin Fitzpatrick* - principal environmental health officer for Dublin City Council

Evert Hassink - traffic campaign, especially air traffic, for Milieudefensie (Dutch environmental

NGO)

John Hinton* - Birmingham City Council / Environmental Protection UK

Jan Jabben - researcher at the noise department of the Netherlands National Institute for

Public Health and the Environment (RIVM)

Lars Jarup - professor Environmental Medicine and Public Health at Imperial College London, involved in the HYENA project

Irene van Kamp - researcher public health and environment issues at the Netherland’s National

Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM)

Melanie Kloth - head of the Environment and Health thematic pillar of Polis (network of European cities and regions which promotes, supports and advocates innovation in local transport)

Jan Kuiper - president of the Dutch Noise Disturbance Foundation (Nederlandse Stichting Geluidshinder)

Jacques Lambert - researcher for the French National Institute for Transport and Safety Research (INRETS)

Nina Renshaw - noise policy officer for the European Federation for Transport and

Environment

Alexander de Roo - senior environmental advisor for the Dutch Province of Gelderland, former

MEP for the European Greens

Wolfgang Schneider - European Commission, DG Enterprise, Automotive

Carlo Schoonebeek - head of the noise department of the Dutch Province of Noord-Holland

Kjell Spang - board member of the Swedish research project Soundscape Support to Health Gisela Vindevogel / Jeroen Lavrijsen - Environment, Nature and Energy Department of the Flemish Community

Dik Welkers - policy coordinator for the Dutch Ministry for Housing, Spatial Planning and the

Environment (VROM)

Fred Woudenberg - head of the environment cluster for the Municipal Health Services

Amsterdam (GGD Amsterdam)

(*) Respondents that are or have been involved with the Working Group Noise of Eurocities.

To be able to understand the issue of noise and it’s priority, the information gathered from the interviews was interpreted by using concepts about agenda setting, problem framing, attention, and policy processes. These also allowed us to compare noise with other environmental problems such as air quality and climate change that are generally thought to have a higher priority on the policy agenda. Furthermore, these concepts can help to identify why the issue receives relatively little policy, public and media attention and hence, what can be done to improve the situation. These analyses and comparisons will reveal the main difficulties in dealing with environmental noise and provide the basis for suggestions for raising the profile of noise.

This research has focussed on the position of noise. Our suggestions are formulated specifically for the case of noise, but apply more widely to environmental problems that, like noise, are believed to have a significant impact on health and the environment but suffer from limited public and political attention.

1.2Technical difficulty not the main issue

It is acknowledged by all respondents, regardless of their background within the field of noise, that the priority of noise on the policy agenda is not high compared to other environmental issues such as air quality and climate change. The original hypothesis, as formulated by the WGN, was that noise will gain a higher priority when policy makers and politicians have a better understanding of the technical information in reports on noise. This hypothesis was based on the assumption that everybody with a full understanding of noise would agree that it should get more attention. If this were true, it would mean that noise would automatically gain a higher priority with more understanding of the subject. However, early on in the interview process it became clear that the lower priority of noise is not primarily due to the technical difficulty of noise. The technical aspects of noise are generally quite well understood by policy makers (on at least the national and European level) or at least by the experts that advise them. This does not discard that noise can be difficult to explain to a lay person. The most prominent difficulty in understanding noise is the decibel scale. This is a logarithmic scale in contrast to the linear scale that most people without prior knowledge would probably assume. This means that 20 dB is not, as one might think, twice as much noise as 10 dB. Furthermore, the new European measure for environmental noise Lden is not a simple average of the noise levels over a year but an average that gives extra weight to noise in the evening and night. Despite these difficulties, the respondents were virtually unanimous in stating that although noise can technically be a difficult subject, other topics such as climate change and air quality are not much easier to understand for a lay person. In other words, the technical complexity is probably not the main problem here. It might well be that other factors are more important.

Alders: You have to be able to understand sound pressure, logarithms and so on. But other subjects such as soil are also quite difficult.

Jarup: When you hear 10 micrograms per cubic metre of nitrogen dioxide, to me that seems equally difficult to understand. But I see your point about the logarithmic scale. That might be a bit confusing to people.

Van Kamp: Air pollution is just as difficult. And action groups around Schiphol airport do cite from reports. Even they seem to understand it including the nuances.

1.3Priority of noise; high or low?

Another assumption made by the WGN is that noise has a low priority with policy makers. Of course priority is a relative concept. A certain level of attention for a subject might indicate high or at least sufficient priority to someone, while the same level of attention might seem insufficient to someone else. The respondents in this research all agreed that noise has a low priority. Taking into account that the respondents represent a wide range of respondents from the field of noise, it can be concluded that a low priority is widely perceived among those with a daily occupation in the field of noise. When asked why noise should have a higher priority two main reasons were mentioned. Firstly, several scientific reports have indicated that noise can have major impacts on public health. Secondly, a number of measures that are available to deal with noise remain scarcely used. These include measures like silent road surfaces and silent tyres.

Noise is certainly not a new topic that has never been on the policy agenda. In the continuation of this report the most important regulations on noise will be discussed some more. For now it is important to note that in many of the older Member States of the European Union there are already extensive regulations that aim to control the noise situation. What is remarkable is that many of these regulations, of which the Dutch Noise Act [1] from 1979 is a good example, already date several decades back.

Welkers: Here, noise is already an issue since 1979. Air quality only really became an issue after Brussels established a number of standards. With air quality we have to catch up with noise. That happens in a short period of time which means that there is a lot to do. Just as with noise a number of logical restrictions will follow to ensure that some borders can’t be crossed. With noise people have gotten used to that. That’s why noise does not get much political attention anymore.

However, stating that noise is off the political agenda would not be correct. In fact, it could be argued that at the European level, noise has even gained momentum over the last few years. Although the European Union has also been involved in noise regulations for quite some time, (the oldest directive on noise, Directive 70/157/EEC [2] which is concerned with the sound levels of motor vehicles, dates back to 1970), the onset for a more general approach to European noise abatement was given in 1996 with the European Commission’s Green Paper on Future Noise Policy 1996 [3] which led to the drafting of directive 2002/49/EC [4] also known as the Environmental Noise Directive (END). This is the first EU document with the aim of reducing environmental noise in general. All earlier EU and most earlier national regulations are aimed at setting limits for specific sources of noise. In practice, this means that every independent noise source is regulated separately. The END contains a number of obligations, mainly for the local level, which will be discussed later on. For now, it suffices to state that the END has created some momentum for the issue of noise over the last few years. Nevertheless, if the majority of the respondents in this research is anything to go by, the upcoming first evaluation of the END (probably 2010) will probably reveal that the results, (especially the low interest in the obligatory public participation process) have been somewhat unsatisfactory. The underlying factors that have caused this are largely the same as the factors that cause a low priority for noise on the policy agenda. These factors will be discussed in Chapter 2.