Unbearable construction noise keeps us awake all night

ANGRY residents have attacked a railway network after complaining a station under construction is keeping them up at night.

Residents in Taff’s Well, South Wales, are complaining of sleepless nights due to loud workers and screaming construction work.

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Workers at the subway station under construction reportedly kept her up all evening with their swearing and pounding.

Neil Ellis, 46, claims his work has been affected by the noise levels, which sometimes last until 5am.

The Cardiff University researcher said WalesLive: “We live next to a railway, we’re not used to noise and I don’t even hear the trains anymore, but it was very different

“The noise starts around 10pm at night and sometimes goes on until 4 or 5am.

“You can hear them dropping stuff on the railroad, they use these big metal pipes that they carry and they drop it on the railroad – it’s really loud.

“I have to concentrate in my work and sometimes I can’t concentrate, it makes me tired.

“I know they’re not choirboys, but you can hear them cursing and screaming.

“They drill and cut – maybe they need to drill there – but they could certainly cut something beforehand. But it’s not just the noise, we’ve been given an end date and we can see that’s not likely to be met.”

The Transport for Wales project was due to be completed in 2023 after plans were drawn up to create a new integrated transport network.

More than £800m has been poured into the project for the new trains, which include improved features.

A £100m Tube depot is being built at Taff’s Well which will also include electrification of the line leading to an increase in work.

Dozens of local residents have angered the ongoing work on the station and are demanding more consideration be given to the construction of the new building.

Bill Loader, 74, has lived on the streets all his life and has had to sleep during the day because his nightly routine was disrupted.

He said: “I had a friend here a couple of weeks ago and he was sitting in the conservatory and he jumped out of his skin at a noise – I asked him what that noise was and it was just a passing train.

“I didn’t notice because we’re so used to trains. However, this noise is really very loud. It keeps me awake and I fall asleep in the afternoons now.

“I sleep in the front, it’s not so bad when I’m downstairs, but when I go to bed I like to have the window open and I can’t leave it open anymore.

“You get the generator running, the horn beeps every few minutes and you can hear them talking.”

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Julie Rabaiotti added: “It wears you down after a while. We’ve been through a lot with the pandemic and I think we’re all mentally fragile and then we have all of this.

“It’s like someone walking into your house in your garden.

“You hear a lot of bangs and jump out of bed thinking something is going to go wrong because it sounds like a disaster.

“It’s really quite scary. There are bright lights too – I sleep in the back and the lights shine in. That also disturbs your sleep.”

“SOUNDS LIKE A DISASTER”

Local residents in Mountain Ash, 15 miles away, have also complained about the amount of noise being used at another subway site.

Air traffic controller Martin Hardcastle claims he was unable to work due to lack of sleep.

Martin, 49, said: “My job is safety critical. I have to go to work fresh.

“There was a series of shifts where I had to call my manager and tell him I hadn’t slept and he said I couldn’t go in.

“We sit inside and hope there’s no noise, and then when it comes at 8.30pm and we start hearing the humming noise of the machines, we know we’re going to have a bad night.

“That can usually go on until about 3:30 a.m. It’s not all night, but it’s sporadic – you never know when it will be. They sometimes do it at night and then in the morning. There seems to be a day shift and a night shift.”

A spokesman for Transport for Wales said: “The work we are undertaking to develop the South Wales Metro represents the largest upgrading of rail infrastructure in decades, enabling us to offer faster, more frequent and greener services between Cardiff and the Vales, we are aware that this will have an impact on our rail neighbors.

I know they’re not choirboys, but you can hear them cursing and screaming.

Neil Ellis

“Our top priority is to ensure that the railway transformation is carried out safely. It is safest to carry out the work when the track is closed so that trains do not pass through areas where work is being carried out.

“We want to keep disruption to a minimum while ensuring work continues at the right pace to deliver improved services across the metro network as quickly as possible.

“We have chosen to limit work mainly to nighttime and weekends as fewer people travel.

“Our schedule for the delivery of work needs to be flexible and responsive to varying circumstances and often changes at short notice.

“While we ideally want to ensure that neighbors along the route are informed of any disruptive work taking place on site, we also do not want to notify neighbors at the last minute of work that is not being carried out or is changing in scope.

“It is important to us to be responsible neighbors and we take all noise-related complaints seriously, particularly those related to swear words.

“We encourage anyone affected by this to contact our customer service team so the matter can be investigated.”