Ban The Cannons UK

Propane Cannons or Bird Scarers are loud, very loud. Annoying devices like leaf blowers generate noise at levels up to 75 or 80 decibels.
But propane cannons can be as loud as 130 decibels. They blow away their opposition, hands down.

Second, you have no control over the noise. where cannons are used under NFU Guidelines they start at 6:30 AM or even earlier and blast away all day long until 8:00 PM- 10PM In areas without regulations farmers operate their cannons from dawn to dusk. Propane cannons emit a noise like a shot gun blast, at 120 - 130 decibels, and at my home we averageup to six blasts per hour per cannon - which should be only 4 per hour!under NFU Guidelines. The past 12 months 2007/8 The "cannon" season starts from Mid November until Mid July and you have to listen to this noise day after day. Is the magnitude of the problem starting to sink in yet?
NFU code of practice/ guidelines states that cannons should not be placed near where people sleep!

NFU Guidelines state that an individual cannon should be timed to go off no more than four times a hour but they have been going off this year on average 6 times an hour i.e. 15 - 20 mins = 1 Blast - 15 – 20 mins 2 Blasts – 15 20 mins later 3 blasts = 6 times an hour.

To give you an idea how many times they go off in a hour/week /month in our area.

1 x Cannon discharges 6 times an hour = 72 blasts in a 12 hour period if they are going of every 20 mins = 504 times in a week.
In a 4-week period that is 2,016 blasts!

we have experienced this year up to 5 x Cannons discharging = 30 Blasts an hour in a 12 hours period they will discharge 360 blasts when they are discharging every 20 mins.
In a 7 day period 5 Cannons = 2,520 a week
In a 4-week period that is 10,080 blasts!

They may not be terribly loud (depending on wind direction) but it is the constant bangs in the “ cannon season” from dawn to dusk with up to five cannons going of which totals 2,520 a week!

THIS IS BASED ON 2007/8

Until I contacted environmental health, cannons were going of every 10 minutes.

What is really frustrating is that propane cannons are totally unnecessary, as they don't work, as tests prove that birds become desensitized after 20 minutes of these devices being in operation.
Propane cannons are cheap to buy, cheap to run & are "automatic" as they do not need anyone, once set up to maintain them. They are also portable which sometimes makes it difficult to locate.

Please look on the website i have submitted, which explains in more detail the problems residents in Canada and the United States are facing.