Distant motorway hum (Priorslee, Telford)

[TerrifiedOfNoise]

for various reasons we had settled on Priorslee in Telford as our choice location for our next ( hopefully forever) home. However, finally now about to put ours on the market we went to view a new build there and I couldn’t get past the distant hum of the motorway. Where we live now is peaceful and quiet and no home either of us has ever lived in (even the same distance from the motorway on the other side of town) has had this noise in the background.

so, do you think this is a noise you learn to ignore?

other threads have recommended water features in the garden but one of the appeals of this area is the play parks, lakes etc. so it would ruin the peacefulness of these.

If anyone knows the area, are there parts of Priorslee where you don’t hear it?

I really don’t know what to do if I can’t get past this noise as Priorslee was really the area we had decided worked practically for us and which was also a nice area, but now I’m not so sure. Any words of wisdom? Ideas for coping with it? Alternative areas?

I’ve lived near enough to a motorway to hear the hum of the motorway, and it is a noise that I got used to very quickly.

I've lived within 5 mins of the M5 for most of my life. It was literally at the end of my garden growing up. You tune it out very quickly.
It all depends if you think you can cope with it until that happens!

@TheNoonBell thanks again for this suggestion, we went to view it and the location is great but the house isn’t quite right for us. Thank you for opening up our search a bit though.

we’re going to see something in Sutton hill next, which I don’t know as an area and neither does my partner but I’m just pleased we’ve managed to broaden our horizons a bit to give us more options.

You need to consider the wind direction - it can make a difference- our main wind direction in uk is from SW. Also how strong the wind was.
Also leaves on trees- things are quieter in the summer when leaves are on tall trees.

Tiggermom makes a good point about wind direction.

We are about a mile away from a very busy motorway, and the only time we became aware of motorway hum was when it wasn't there - during lockdowns. The silence was deafening!

We are also about 3 miles, as the crow flies, from a busy airport and don't generally hear (or maybe we're just so used to it that we tune it out) any aeroplane noise until the wind is in a particular direction.

It's amazing how quickly you become used to noise when you live near it and how it just becomes part of the general background noise we learn to ignore.

I can hear the motorway from where I live. I am a mile away. Don't hear it everyday but it can be quite loud on wet days. I still find it very annoying and have been here more than 12 years.

Don't do it I like peace and quiet and regret moving near a busy road

we’re going to see something in Sutton hill next, which I don’t know as an area and neither does my partner but I’m just pleased we’ve managed to broaden our horizons a bit to give us more options.

Yep @TerrifiedOfNoise try Sutton HIll (more the Sutton Heights end) Madeley (80s estates with big houses and gardens well spread out) and bits of Aqueduct?

The noise will NOT decrease with increasing electric cars, this is because most of the noise is from the tyres which will INCREASE due to the weight of the electric cars being greater, and presumably more lorries moving goods. So what you hear will likely remain. If you can plant trees it'll shield you from a fair bit of noise - we find noise drops in the summer months as the trees have leaves.

Definitely visit in different weather conditions. I live in an otherwise very quiet village about a mile and a half from a motorway. There are times we don't hear it at all, but other times when it's been raining and the wind is blowing our way that it sounds like it's at the bottom of our garden! It doesn't really bother me, it's the only compromise we had to make when we moved here so I put up with it. And it is generally quieter in the summer when we want to be outside more.

Sutton heights house was beautiful but we took a walk to the nearest shop and the area there was definitely not somewhere we could envisage letting our kids walk to, so it would mean a lifetime of driving which isn’t what either of us want.

Meh. I just moved next to a busy A road, it literally goes past the bottom of our garden.

We have learned to ignore it. And the house is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper because of it. So we get much more house!

No. It would totally drive me mad.

I live right by a motorway, you get used to it . The only time I notice it now is when it's at a standstill the silence is deafening.

The thing is that Priorslee isn’t cheap, so it’s paying a lot of money to then have that noise in the background that seems crazy to me. 400k is a lot to me and I want it to be our forever home.

I live less than a mile from a motorway, on a quiet night with the windows open we notice the hum a little bit but mostly it’s just background noise.

@TerrifiedOfNoise

Well. Our house was double that (stupid south east) and also our forever home. But saving 100k on it due to the road means we'll be mortgage free by 50.

A distant hum wouldn't bother me in the slightest, you'll habituate

A lot of road noise, especially motorway noise, is not from engines, it's from the wheels + the road surface.....
Low-noise surfaces are usually less grippy, so the trade-off is a difficult one for road building; safety vs noise.

IIRC Priorslee is N of the motorway, isn't it? and the prevailing winds there will be from the SW. So you will get noise most of the time, I'm afraid. How much depends a lot on where in Priorslee.
I lived a field away from the M6 to the NE of it, and you had to shout to be heard across the back garden. I then lived somewhat further away to the SW of it and heard very, very much less, except when the wind was in the NE.
I've lived on noisy roads in London that have annoyed me less than the first house did, but that's because they went quiet at night and I had no garden to sit in.....

Yeah in that situation I might compromise but as it is we have a good budget for the area and Priorslee is pricey despite the motorway noise so we make no real savings.

tbh we are pretty sure after seeing the house by the town park that proximity to that and the town centre is important to us. That house just wasn’t the one for us, but the area of Randlay is more so than Priorslee.

We’ve been in Shifnal now for a few years. Can hear a slight hum from the motorway but live very close to it. Can’t sleep without it now 🤣

Hi. Did you get a place in Priorslee in the end? If you did what is it like? We've seen a place in York Rd we like but I keep reading that in a few years it will be like the rest of Telfords rough spots. I know there are rough places everywhere but what I'm saying is what the Internet say and crime stats say doesn't always match up. I'm just looking for some real feedback from people who live there now instead of what social media says about it.

Zombie

Hi, we actually moved to Randlay to be able to walk into town/cycle to the town park and we love it.
There are definitely rough parts of Telford but I personally doubt Priorslee will go that way as the rough parts tend to be the big council estates with lots of terraced houses and the nice areas remain those with detached houses. I know people who live in Priorslee and they are all very middle class, so I can’t see it not continuing to be a middle class area. If anything the popularity of Priorslee is having a knock on effect on St George’s and improving that area too.