It doesn't take a genius to realise that quarrying is a very intrusive activity. One of the ways it intrudes into our lives is through noise. Constant, unrelenting noise that you can't silence by simply closing the windows, because the noise is being carried right into your home through vibrations in the ground.

We'll be faced with the constant drone and hum of pumping equipment which the quarry companies will have running right around the clock to prevent the hole from flooding.
When we're hit by one of Norfolk's remarkably frequent power cuts, the pumping equipment's backup deisel generators will kick in automatically, and you can be sure they aren't quiet.
We'll be forced to endure the noise of digging and excavation machinery as it extracts ton after ton of gravel. We're not talking about ordinary yellow Bob The Builder style JCB's here. Make no mistake about that. This is industrial excavation machinery that removes huge quantities of gravel in the quickest, most cost effective way possible.
There will be the constant clank and rumbling of very large vehicles and deisel engines right throughout the working day.
We'll be forced to stand by helplessly and listen while big hairy workmen turn the air blue shouting dirty jokes back and forth at each other, and our children come home repeating the obscenities they've heard.
And if the quarry company decide it's more cost effective to crush, grade and wash the gravel on site, the cacophony will be accompanied by the sound of this machinery too.

So, this is going to be loud. Very loud.
If you are a Pentney resident, stand up, walk away from your computer, open your front door and just listen for a moment.
We live in an amazingly peacefull and quiet village. Even in the middle of the day there's hardly a sound to be heard, and those sounds that do exist are pleasant countryside ones. It's the reason most of choose to live here.
Now imagine what it would be like if you opened your door to hear the noise of a hard working quarry. Imagine if that sound was present all day, every day and you just couldn't escape from it.
It's not nice is it?

Well that's only the tip of the iceberg. Now you know what sort of noise we'll be forced to listen to, but how loud will it be?
The simple answer to that question is Far Too Loud. Quite alarmingly loud in fact.
The Health & Safety Executive in the UK have published guidelines for permissable noise levels in quarries in their document, HS(G)109.
The guideline levels in the UK for working quarries are between 90dB and 110dB, however HSE will allow peak levels of up to 140dB, but these peak levels must not be sustained over a prolonged period. Sadly they neglected to tell us what they regard a prolonged period to be.

140dB is a rather meaningless figure unless you happen to be well versed in the physics of sound pressures, so to put it in some sort of perspective, 140dB is equivalent to the noise levels inside the cockpit of a Formula 1 racing car, or at the side of the runway when a Jumbo Jet is taking off.
Now consider that prolonged exposure to sounds of only 75dB can cause permanent hearing damage and this 140dB peak permitted level starts to look very scary.
But if you think that's worrying, you might want to know that the human body has a pain threshold when it comes to decibel levels. Any sound exceeding 130dB will cause the listener to suffer real physical pain.

Of course, not everyone in the village will be exposed to the full 140dB blast of noise. As we all know, sound reduces with distance from the source, so only those people living around the perimiter of the site will suffer that fate.
There is a formula we can use to work out how the decibel levels will diminish as the distance from the site increases, and using that formula we have produced a Pentney Noise Map, showing how each area of the village will be affected by the noise emanating from the quarry.

As we move away from the site to a distance of 200 metres (about two football pitches), the noise levels will drop to 100dB. That's equivalent to a noisy disco.
Move further out to a distance of 500 metres (about five football pitches) and the noise has now dropped to 85dB. That's the same sort of noise levels as you would expect to find by the side of a busy motorway.
Travel out even further, to a distance of 1 kilometre and the noise drops to 75dB. Only now have we reached the boundary of the area where peak decibel levels can and will permanently damage your hearing. To get to this safe haven, you would have to travel to West Bilney, Falgate Farm, Abbey Field Farm or Ashwood Lodge.
That's a long way to travel for a bit of peace and quiet, but even then you haven't escaped the noise. You'll still be able to hear the quarry working at a distance of 4 kilometres, as loud as the humming of your washing machine.

But never mind. If they make enough noise, we'll all go stone deaf and then we won't have to worry about it anymore.