CIEH Noise Management Conference

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RHE Global  

The trusted app for professionals investigating and managing noise and community safety issues. Users simply record the noise and submit their recording directly to their housing provider, local authority or regulator.

Andy Cole, Principal Permitting Officer, Environment Agency. Andy has worked in the regulation and assessment of air quality and environmental noise for over 20 years. 

Having spent most of his career working in local government  as an Environmental Health Practitioner and noise specialist, he moved to the Environment Agency 4 years ago. 

His current role as Principal Permitting Officer includes being the “Permitting Installations Lead” for Noise – supporting Permitting Officers with complex noise queries. 

Andy has also undertaken a range of consultancy work over the years – assisting private and public sector clients with contentious planning / licensing issues, and has extensive experience in event noise management. 

Andy holds Chartered Membership status with the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, and Corporate Membership status with the Institute of Acoustics.

Chris Steel, Principal Specialist Inspector (Noise and Vibration), Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Chris has worked for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) since 2015. He specialises in the inspection and investigation of workplace noise, hand-arm vibration and whole body vibration. He is also responsible for HSE's technical understanding of the assessment and control of workplace noise and vibration. Before he joined the HSE, he spent 18 years working in noise and vibration consultancy, academia and acoustic product design.

Dani Fiumicelli, Associate, RBA Acoustics Ltd. Dani was an EHO in local Government for 16 years before becoming an acoustic consultant in 2002. Since then Dani's clients in the private sector have included  developers of noise generating and noise sensitive schemes; and in the public sector many Local Authorities, the Westminster and Scottish Governments, The Greater London Authority, Transport for London and Transport Northern Ireland. Dani is experienced in projects involving the modelling, prediction and assessment of noise and vibration, including industrial and commercial schemes, nationally significant airport, railway, highway infrastructure projects, and for leisure and residential schemes. In his capacity as a noise & vibration expert he has often been called upon to generate environmental statements (ESs) and noise impact assessments for development proposals or provide reviews of such documents on behalf of planning authorities. Dani has also acted as as an expert witness at DCO hearings, public and parliamentary inquiries and in legal proceedings.

Dr Julija Smyrnowa, Environment and Business Advisor (Noise), Environment. Dr Julija Smyrnowa is a Noise Advisor with extensive experience in environmental noise, building acoustics, soundscape, and environmental assessment.

Prior to joining the Environment Agency, Dr Smyrnowa worked as an Acoustic Consultant for a large international multidisciplinary consultancy, where she was involved in a wide range of infrastructure, building acoustics, environmental noise, and vibration projects.

Since joining the Environment Agency, Dr Smyrnowa has contributed to the development of national technical guidance, including the Monitoring Instruction Document (MID) for BS 4142 assessments and guidance on the Agent of Change principle for Environment Agency staff. She provides specialist advice on noise and amenity issues associated with environmental permitting and development proposals.

Jon Tofts, Senior Advisor for Noise, Environment Agency. Jon is the Senior Advisor for noise at the Environment Agency, leading the national noise team. He has over 20 years’ experience of regulating industrial noise pollution, and takes a lead role in the most complex and contentious noise incidents in the country. He has produced extensive noise training materials that have been adopted across the UK, produces CPD for the Institute of Acoustics, and runs the IoA environmental noise certificate. He is a member of the BSI committee responsible for environmental noise pollution standards including BS 4142.

Outside of acoustics, Jon has been a Scout Leader for over 10 years and loves walking on the Quantock Hills with his lurcher dog. 

Jonathan Pickering, Policy and Public Affairs Manager, CIEH.  A Policy and Public Affairs Professional, Jonny Pickering has worked in CIEH’s Policy and External Affairs team since last year. Jonny’s principle areas of policy and advocacy work at CIEH are Noise and Nuisance, Local Government Reorganisation and English Devolution. He also works on wider areas of Environmental Health policy including Public Health, Environmental Protection and Air Quality.

Jonny previously worked for Marie Curie in their Research Management and Community Fundraising teams, studied an MSc in International Development and BA in Politics focused on Public Policy and Comparative Politics’.

Katy King, Director in Sustainable Future Mission, Nesta.

Katy is a director in Nesta's mission to create a sustainable future, which focuses on home decarbonisation.

Her team focuses on setting up innovation projects and partnerships that reduce carbon emissions from homes, which is a key part of the UK reaching net zero. As part of this work, Katy has focused on better understanding sound emissions from air source heat pumps and how possible negative effects can be minimised. 

Katy joined Nesta from the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), where she worked across a number of policy areas, including household energy efficiency, consumer issues and COVID-19. Katy holds a first-class degree in social and political sciences from the University of Cambridge.

Neil Coyle, Labour MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark. Neil is the Labour MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, first elected in 2015. He campaigns on issues including poverty, housing, homelessness and anti-social behaviour. He is Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB APPG), which focuses on tackling ASB and supporting communities affected by it.

Paul Doyle, Team Leader – Acoustics, Environment Agency. Paul has worked in acoustics for over 15 years, and is the Acoustics Team Leader for the AQMAU team (Acoustics & Air Quality Modelling and Assessment Unit) at the Environment Agency. AQMAU are responsible for acoustics issues within the EA’s Permitting service and their work is mainly focussed on the permit application stage.  Paul has been at the EA for over 6 years and worked in acoustic consultancy for 9 years prior to that, studying Sound and Vibration Studies at the University of Southampton along the way.

Day to day, Paul reviews noise impact assessments submitted by acoustic consultants, supports EA colleagues with noise issues and manages a team of 6 acousticians. His role has a strategic focus, and he regularly engages with the acoustics industry via the Institute of Acoustics and Association of Noise Consultants, to share AQMAU’s processes and highlight how improvements can be made to noise impact assessments.

Paul is a Member of the Institute of Acoustics and the Institution of Environmental Sciences, and is a Chartered Scientist.

Richard Perkins, Technical Director – Acoustics, Mott MacDonald. Richard Perkins is a Chartered Acoustic Engineer and an honorary Fellow of the Institute of Acoustics with over 30 years’ experience in acoustics, noise and vibration. Currently a Technical Director at Mott MacDonald Ltd, he has worked for manufacturers, consultancies, and Government, provided training to local authorities on the noise assessment of renewal energy schemes, and is a member British Standards Institution (EH1/3 Noise Committee). He is the current chair of the Institute of Acoustics Renewable Energy Advisory Group and has overseen the production of the IOAGPG on wind farm noise and the proposed new guidance on noise assessment from Battery Energy and Storage and Solar schemes.

Steve Mitchell, Mitchell Environmental Ltd. Steve Mitchell is an aircraft noise expert with 35 years experience. He is a fellow of the UK Institute of Acoustics and the Chairman of the institute’s Environmental Sound Group.  Steve has studied noise around 54 airports in 24 countries, has undertaken three major airport noise research projects for the EC, and lectured on the effect of aircraft noise. Steve has been London Gatwick Airport’s air noise advisor since 2014, leading numerous ongoing noise mitigation studies and the noise assessment for Northern Runway Project Development Consent Order application in 2024.

Stephen Turner, Vice President, Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) & Director, Stephen Turner Acoustics Limited. Stephen Turner is an Independent Acoustics Consultant at Stephen Turner Acoustics Limited. He has been working in the field of acoustics and noise control for over 45 years. His career has spanned both the public and private sector. He was a technical adviser to noise policy officials at the UK's Defra for over 15 years, including 4 years as a civil servant, during which he was closely involved in the development and implementation of noise management policy in England. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Acoustics (IoA) an individual member of the European Commission’s Noise Expert Group and Chair of the British Standards Committee that deals with transportation noise.

Somayya Yaqub, Member, Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH).

Somayya Yaqub is an Environmental Health Practitioner with over 20 years of experience in Enforcement, Environmental Protection, Health and Safety, Housing and Planning.

She has extensive experience of big regeneration projects and risk prevention through design. She has provided evidence at planning inquiries and House of Commons Select Committee.

She is also co-author of the Professional Planning Guidance document to supplement the National Planning Policy framework, and the Heat Pumps Professional Advice Note. A member of the Institute of Acoustics Environmental Noise Committee and a Member of the CIEH Environmental Protection Group and Noise Satellite Panel.

Her interests are focused on the design and construction of homes that protect and support the health and wellbeing of occupants without dependence on air purifiers or mechanical ventilation. The approach includes consideration of soundscape, good acoustic design, and access to green spaces. These homes would be planned in accordance with anticipated climate changes, such as extreme heat and cold, and would utilise renewable energy sources.

Dr Sierra Clark, Lecturer in Population Health – Environmental Epidemiologist, University of London. Sierra is a Lecturer in Population Health and an environmental epidemiologist. Her work focusses on uncovering the multifaceted health effects of sound and air quality in both outdoor and indoor environments around the world. Her research interests also include developing and applying novel methods for measuring and modelling the spatial distribution of environmental pollutant exposures, as well as quantifying the disease burdens associated with these risk factors to inform policy and practice. She currently lead and/or support several research projects in the UK, Ghana, and Rwanda that involve modelling pollutant exposures and assessing the health impacts of transportation noise pollution and poor indoor air quality (particularly related to damp and mould, carbon monoxide, NO₂, and PM₂.₅). Sierra is also serve as a committee member of the UK Indoor Environments Group (UKIEG) and as a co-lead on a EPSRC-funded micro network+ (AirHub Network) focused on PM₂.₅ air pollution in UK homes. She has experience working in the public sector at the intersection of science and policy, having previously worked as an Environmental Public Health Scientist at the UK Health Security Agency in the Air Quality and Noise and Public Health teams, as well as with Health Canada in the Air Pollution Exposure Science section.