Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140
- 159)
140. CHAIRMAN: Yes, thank you.
141. MR ELVIN: My Lords, unless your
Lordships have anything more for us at this stage, that concludes
our opening remarks.
142. CHAIRMAN: Well, thank you very much
to all three of you. I think in that case we can resume at 2.30
and get educated on noise.
After a short adjournment
143. CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr Elvin?
144. MR ELVIN: May it please your Lordships.
We will start the noise presentation, if that is convenient to
the Committee. Might I call Mr Thornely-Taylor?
MR RUPERT
THORNELY-TAYLOR,
sworn Examined by MR ELVIN
145. MR ELVIN: Mr Thornely-Taylor, if
I can just introduce you comprehensively and, hopefully, for the
only time I need to do this in any detail to the Committee. You
are Rupert Thornely-Taylor. You are a Fellow and founder member
of the Institute of Acoustics, you are a Member of the Institute
of Noise Control Engineering of the USA, you are a Member of the
International Institute of Acoustics and Vibration and you have
specialised exclusively in the subjects of noise, vibration and
acoustics for more than 44 years.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor)
That is true.
146. You have been an independent consultant
in these subjects for the past 40 years and you have the practice
known as Rupert Taylor FIOA.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) That is correct.
147. You are President of the Association of
Noise Consultants and, indeed, were the Chairman from 2003 to
2005; you are a Director of the International Institute of Acoustics
and Vibration, and for ten years you were a Member of the Noise
Advisory Council, chaired by the Secretary of State for the Environment.
You were Chairman and Deputy Chairman of two of its working groups,
and you are a Member of the Scott Committee, which drafted the
basis of the noise section in the Control of Pollution Act 1974.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes, that is correct.
148. You head the consultancy division of Rupert
Taylor Limited, which is a specialist in numerical modelling of
the generation and propagation of vibration; you developed the
finite difference time domain package "Findwave" which
has been used for the prediction of vibration, reradiated noise
and groundborne noise extensively over the past 12 years in many
countries.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes.
149. You are the author of the Pelican book
Noise, editor or co-author of many other books, including
The Association of Noise Consultants' Guidelines, Measurement
and Assessment of Groundborne Noise and Vibration, and you
are a member of the working group that produced the recent ISO
standard on Mechanical Vibration, Groundborne Noise and Vibration
Arising from Rail Systems, Part 1 General Guidance.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) I was.
150. You have prepared reports on noise for
the OECD. A large part of your work has been concerned with noise
and vibration from railways; you have had consultancy commissions
from railway undertakings, objectors to railway proposals, rolling
stock builders and equipment suppliers, and you were the noise
and vibration consultant to a number of major projects, including
the DLR. Is that right?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) That is right.
151. You were involved in the City, Becton,
Lewisham, City Airport and Woolwich Arsenal extension projects.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes.
152. You were the expert witness in both Houses
of Parliament during the Committee stages of all of the DLR and
Croydon Tramlink Bills.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) I was.
153. You were noise and vibration consultant,
too, and expert witness in Parliament for the original Crossrail
and Jubilee Line Extension projects, and you were the expert witness
in the House of Commons Committee on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link
Bill on behalf of Union Railways.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes, I was.
154. You were the expert witness for Network
Rail in the Thameslink 2000 public inquiries.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes.
155. Other major projects on an international
scale in which you have been concerned, the Kowloon-Canton Railway,
West Rail project in Hong Kong, City Tunnel in Mälmo in Sweden
and Vastlankenin in Gothenburg; part of the Independent
Verifier Team for the Parramatter rail link in Sydney in Australia.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) That is right.
156. And you are consultant to the contractors
for Edinburgh Tram.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes.
157. Rather than go through any more details,
I will simply end by saying that you have considerable experience
in construction noise and vibration; you carried out construction
noise studies of the Jubilee Line Extension, and you have been
an expert witness not only in the major projects I have mentioned
but in many others over the last decades.
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) That is quite right.
158. MR ELVIN: Thank you very much.
159. CHAIRMAN: Mr Thornely-Taylor, do
I remember rightly that you were the person who designed the noise
regime for the City Airport?
(Mr Thornely-Taylor) Yes, my Lord, that is quite correct.
I was consultant for London Docklands Development Corporation
at the time.
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