Noise Policy (Updated November 2025)

This page seeks to explain the Committee’s current policy with regards to noise generated from Garden Operations, with a particular focus on leafblowing. Our objective is to minimise the noise impact of Garden Operations — first and foremost on our Gardening team, but also on our neighbours (ratepayers and otherwise). 

The current policy builds on efforts and learning over the last 3 years with our current Contract Gardeners, Gravtias Gardens.

2025 has seen demonstrable improvements in the capability of Electric Gardening Equipment, including the first Backpack Leaf blower to match the performance of industry leading petrol models. As such, the Garden Committee are supporting our Contract Gardeners in investing in these quieter, safer tools. The need to continue operations however, remains.

Unfortunately there a lot of misconceptions regarding the practicalities of Garden Operations and microenvironment realities in a Central London Square, which can lead to unrealistic expectations (such as using no power tools, or ignoring seasonal change) and frankly, a lack of empathy to Gardeners. Residents referred to this page are asked to engage with the detail of these practicalities and set expectations accordingly. 

It is worth noting that between the Garden’s managing agent, our Contract Gardeners, and Committee Volunteers, the Committee as a whole are afforded an intricate understanding of the operations at over 3 dozen Garden Squares.

The Committee continues to benchmark Gloucester Square against its peers, hoping not only to set the best policies, but also communicate them transparently.

The Challenge of Clearing Beds, the Lawn and Gravel Paths

We would hope all residents appreciate that no Gardener has a particular predisposition to strap a petrol engine to their back, and spend many hours a week in such close proximity to the noise, not to mention breathing in poorly filtered exhaust particulates. 

They do so, because it is comparatively safer to their health (vs detrimental repetitive movements contrary to statute), and the only practical way to move significant amounts of material, without damaging lawns / flowerbeds / paths, in a time-effective, and therefore cost effective way. We will explain why clearing is critical in the next section.

Flowerbeds can’t be effectively cleared of leaves with brushes or rakes. It would lead to excessive plant death, and create compounding issues with weed growth. Gloucester Square’s layout is impractical, with over 1 linear-kilometer of flowerbeds, on average 3m depth (over 3,000 SQM of delicate bedding). 

Over the last few decades, Gloucester Square’s paths were covered in decorative gravel, which has become a mud-gravel mix over time due to decomposing material. The Committee are currently in a process of removing this gravel – further details on the dedicated page – but only on the cleared sections of path along the Southern length of road is Sweeping a realistic alternative to blowing. Sweeping the gravel paths would pile gravel and leaves together, and flick yet more pesky gravel into the flowerbeds. Clearing must occur to stop further muck decomposing and mixing with the Gravel.

Lawns could hypothetically be hand-raked, though the sheer area (circa 0.75 acres) would be extremely time consuming, represent excessive manual operation and repetitive physical movement. Repetitive is a key issue with excessive manual raking, as the motion (pulling towards the body on one side or another) is extremely repetitive compared to other physical labour such as digging or sweeping where the motion can be varied on each go. Sweeping the Lawn would be highly damaging.

The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (MHOR) suggests such works should be avoided where reasonable alternatives exist, such as leaf blowers. This is reinforced by accompanying guidance by the Health and Safety Executive, that highlights repetitive physical movements are a recognised factor in musculoskeletal disorders, and recommends avoidance or frankly burdensome mitigation strategies (limited working periods, adequate rest breaks, etc). 

For both the paths and the Lawn, wheeled Leaf Vacuums would offer a slightly lower operating noise level than leaf blowers, though could not be used universally in the Garden (as the beds would still need to be blown). We continue to keep an eye on developments in this space.

The Challenge of Plane Trees

London Squares have significant amounts of material to remove or reuse each year, highly correlated to their number of London Plane Trees. 

The first issue is the Trichomes dropped by Plane Trees between Easter and Summer each year. Whilst studies are limited, each of Gloucester Square’s c.200 year old Plane Trees are thought to drop 1-3billion hairs (clumped together). These hairs are highly unpleasant, as they feature small hooks that get lodged in ones throat. Blowing the trichomes as soon as they fall (before the individual hairs detach) is the most effective way of removing the problem. Raking and Sweeping is extremely ineffective.

The second issue is leaf-fall. An established, 200 year old Plane Tree will drop half an acre of leaves in the Fall, Gloucester Square’s 14 Plane Trees therefore drop over 7 acres of leaves. 

Residents are encouraged to examine one of the leaves dropped by our Plane trees. They are wide (15-25cm across), thick, robust and slow to breakdown. More scientifically they have a high lignin and wax content, but a low nitrogen content, making them highly resistant to microbial breakdown. 

This means when they fall on surfaces they have a smothering and wet-sheet effect. Because there is a far greater area of leaves in the Plane Tree, than ground beneath it, they form a thick layer that blocks sunlight, traps moisture, blocks oxygen and prevents wider gas exchange. This is damaging to the Lawn and Perrenial Plants in particular.

So Plane Tree leaves need to be collected, enmass, the challenge then becomes what to do with them.

Because of their resistance to Decomposition, Plane Tree Leaves can only be mulched if they are first blended down and mixed with nitrogen (imported fertilisers or grass clippings, etc), even then, they can take 18 months to decompose into a suitable nutrifying leaf mulch. The Blending process would not only create additional noise in the Garden, but also release quantities of harmful PM2.5 and PM10 particles that the Plane Leaves are particularly effective at trapping during their active life. 

So is it worth Mulching Plane Tree Leaves? The Committee’s current position is that it is not. 

The noise and particle release issues are particularly problematic given it would occur at one static point in the garden, disproportionately impacting a subset of ratepayers. The nutrient benefit is also highly questionable. Plane Tree leaves have a high tannin & polyphenol content, making them slightly acidic, and temporarily inhibitive of microbial activity and earthworm feeding. The aforementioned low nitrogen content of the Plane Tree leaves means they do little to address a nitrogen shortage in the wider garden.

That leaves manual removal – which is the current policy. Each year the garden removes all dropped plane tree leaves for third-party disposal/reuse, a process managed by our Contract Gardeners. We appreciate this leads to two leaf-blowing seasons in the Garden, but the Committee simply can’t see a practical and well-reasoned alternative to this process at present.

Gardening Operations have to be coordinated to gather, collect (in the garden compound) and remove leaves  as effectively as possible during the fall.