Breaking: Spa saved! Belgians still have common sense
November 19, 2009 by Negative Camber
Filed under Prime & Option
If you move in to a house next to an airport, can you expect to hear jets landing and taking off? If you buy a house next to a racing circuit, can you expect to hear the occasional race and engine noise from cars? The answer, to me anyway, seems to be a resounding yes but residents near the Spa Francorchamp circuit have attempted to put a halt to racing there as it is noisy.
RTBF has announced that Philippe Henry, the Walloon regional Minister of the Environment, Planning and Mobility has passed an ordinance, of sorts, that will see the race continue until 2011 when a new discussion will center around scientific data collected this year regarding sound pollution. That sound pollution is a booger! Takes 100 years to degrade and can’t be buried just anywhere. The half life is something upwards of 100 years and the mess it makes on cheap vinyl siding is terrible. You have to bag it in white plastic bags (no handles) and use Lysol on the empty noise pollution bin when you empty it.
Is this a joke? They also are demanding that at least two weeks during the summer months that there be no racing at all. Here’s an idea…MOVE!!! Don’t get me started but when you move next to a racing circuit, you should be denied any claim to noise pollution. Why do I suspect Al Gore may be getting ready to make a few million on this deal?
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While there is a legitimate concern regarding the effects of noise and sound pollution on an ecosystem, Spa has been around long enough that the local flora and fauna have by now either adapted or bugged out. The sound pollution argument holds no water. The humans living near the track should have known what to expect, much as you say if you moved next to an airport.
I cant understand how courts/governments even entertain claims like this. The track was there first, you knew what you were buying, deal with it.
My Sister-in-law, did the same thing with the airport she lives next to, costing us ratepayers over $3M in changes to the airport just because of her. She’s an idiot though and we dont talk to her at all.
You guys are forgetting about all the 90 years old Walloons that WERE living there before the racing started !!! Then again, they’re not the people with the best hearing anyway.
LOL. Yes, the 90 year-old may not be claiming noise pollution or anything else for that matter. :)
This is really a matter of shame for the local people eho cannot respect the legendary circut they are living next to, although not everyone is a petrol-head and might not like the noise from the engines, but to people like us, it is music to our ears, its the sound of passion, excitement and enthusisam. I would gladly move in to one of those houses if someone is willing to vacate. And also to say this about a circuit like Spa is derogatory as every now and then someone calls it the most natural, most beautifully located citcuit in the world.