Acoustic consultant Martin Higgins has completed a ground-breaking research project which includes a detailed noise model for outdoor padel courts for use in planning applications and resident disputes.
Higgins’s research, produced under supervision from the Institute of Acoustics, aims to create a reliable benchmark so that noise created by padel courts can be assessed and predicted accurately and compared to noise created by tennis courts so it can be more easily interpreted.
Higgins, whose firm MW Acoustics specialises in delivering noise assessments for sporting venues, is set to present his research at the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health’s Noise Management Conference on 17 September, after having his research incorporated into its online training programmes.
Currently, there are huge inconsistencies between different local authorities on how noise from new padel facilities is assessed in planning applications. Projects are adjudged on different criteria from one town to the next and there’s a need for definitive, contextual guidance.
The situation is exacerbated by recent negative publicity in the UK and abroad around contested planning applications due to noise concerns. This heightens tensions and anxiety around new applications.
Higgins tolds The Padel Paper. “When I looked into the processes used during planning applications for outdoor padel courts, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it. The documentation suggested using guidance from all sorts of different areas which just wasn’t applicable. Some weren’t using guidance at all.”
There is as yet no legislation or explicit guidance for noise criteria on padel courts in the UK. Consequently, Higgins says noise impact assessments that underpin current padel planning applications lack relevance, detail, context and nuance.
He explained: “The noise criteria commonly used up to now tends to bring it down to a single figure; an overall sound level or LAEQ, which is a measurement of the average sound energy level created over a period of time.
“To put that into context, if you have a dog barking it’s going to be really annoying, but it probably wouldn’t give you a very high average sound energy compared to a constant noise. Even though the single figure does represent the amount of sound energy being produced, it’s not always very descriptive when it comes to the amount of annoyance it creates. Sound is so variable.
“Planning applications base it on this single figure, map that back far enough so it doesn’t exceed 50dB at the side of the nearest house and that’s the criteria they use.
“If there are issues or local, they then need to start considering the impact sounds and that becomes a contextual discussion about the local environment and how intrusive it’s going to be.
“The problem is there’s no data to tell you what those impact sounds are, how intrusive they are, or how many of them there are compared to tennis. So I’ve put that complete model together for padel and compared it to tennis so you can have that contextual argument.”
Court walls act as a ‘sound bouncer’…
Higgins completed 50 hours of modelling with sound level meters at various points around an outdoor padel court. The court walls act as a ‘sound bouncer’ and create semi-reverberant environment, so he tracked sound at 360 degrees and built a noise model, while also measuring individual impact sounds (racket on ball, ball on perimeter walls and grille), the frequency of those sounds at different player skill levels, and much more.
His research states that over a typical five-minute period of play at club level, padel generated an average of 88 distinct impact sounds, compared to 50 in tennis. He also found that a padel racket strikes the ball every four seconds compared to six in tennis.
Interestingly, he found that the orientation of a padel court was very significant.
When measured 5m from the side of the court (at the net line), a typical game of padel produced on average six decibels (dB) more than tennis, which equates to a significant increase in perceived loudness.
In contrast, when measured 5m from the end of the court (baseline), the noise levels for both padel and tennis are almost identical (primarily due to the solid glass boundary at the back of the court acting as a sound barrier.
The report states: “The noise level at the side of the court is approximately 12 dB higher than at the enclosed glass end… this will equate to more than a doubling of perceived loudness. This point in between courts placed side-by-side was shown to be loudest point, as it benefits from this increased sound egress from both courts and vocal noise from congregating players and spectators.”
The report concludes: “The orientation of padel courts relative to noise-sensitive neighbours is a critical design consideration. The open sides of the court present the greatest acoustic risk.
“Standard noise assessments that only consider the average overall noise level (LAeq) may not fully capture the potential for disturbance from padel, as the frequency and character of its impact sounds are a major factor in how the noise is perceived.
“This research has constructed a noise model for padel courts which can be used to predict and benchmark the noise at a site where padel is planned or where an existing site is being assessed.”
Read MW Acoustics padel acoustics guidance and a summary of their research here
More on padel’s noise issue:
Adam Walker, Principal Consultant at Peninsular Acoustics, on good practice for padel venues
How the British media has seized upon padel’s noise problem
Five top tips for securing planning permission for padel courts
Padel Alba technology claims to reduce padel’s noise problem by half
Very interesting research. I would like to understand how effective acoustic screening measures are in reducing noise leakage.
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