By Malcolm King

The price of progress is insomnia. We live across the road from the $30 million Kiama Woolworth’s rebuild on Terralong Street, and have experienced the sound of jackhammering, bulldozing and riveting for the past 15 months.

We’re not NIMBYs and knew there was going to be noise. As Growthbuilt’s signs said, “you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.”

Little did we know how much our life would be scrambled.

Unfortunately, the demolition and construction noise started earlier and earlier and finished later and later. Instead of starting at 7.00am during the week, and finishing at 5.00pm, according to the development authority, they would start work at 6.30am and work sometimes through to 9.30 or 10pm.

On Saturday, instead of starting at 8.00am, construction workers would start reversing trucks and firing up machinery at 7.00am and instead of finishing at 2.00pm, they’d work through to 4.00 or 5.00pm.

The noise was in the 75-85 decibel range and higher with jack hammering.

I made more than 35 complaints to the Growthbuilt site supervisor, the project manager and the Director of Woolworths Retail Portfolio. Sometimes they’d shut down. Sometimes they didn’t. If we didn’t complain, they would have kept on working into the night.

I saw men working in the rain and working at night without lights while heavy machinery was operating nearby. There were people walking around without high vizzies or hard hats on. The worker who fell through the roof didn’t have a harness on.

I complained to Council and it did nothing. Why would it? It’s a ‘good news story’ in PR speak. Other residents complained too, with the same result. I wrote to Growthbuilt in Sydney and heard nothing. I contacted the NSW Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It said contact the Council.

The Kiama Council’s Growth and Housing Strategy must give hard focus on the noise of development, especially construction firms such as Growthbuilt, who failed to set realistic deadlines, which forced their plant operators to work outside standard hours.

Dr Mathias Basner, a psychiatrist and president of the International Commission on the Biological Effects of Noise, wrote in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, “Noise pollution can increase the prevalence of cardiovascular disease and mortality in highly noise-exposed groups. It can also negatively affect children's learning outcomes and cognitive performance.”

When sound reaches the brain, it activates the amygdala. This releases adrenaline and cortisol into the body. Some arteries constrict, others dilate, blood pressure rises, digestion slows while sugars and fats flood the bloodstream. You wake up exhausted.

If you’re a young Mum or a shift worker, who goes from eight hours sleep a night to four or five, you feel it. The lethargy strangles happiness, work productivity plummets and tempers flare.

Kiama is undergoing a building boom. Soon they’ll start to build the Akuna Street development with 82 housing units, 24 retail premises, a large underground car park and two supermarkets.

Kiama is no longer a sleepy country town but its residents have the right to sleep.