New app is helping to fix noise
Daniel Kershaw always likes pushing himself to reach greater heights.
And last week the Bankfoot resident was reflecting on completing his latest gruelling charity challenge.
The 45-year-old impressively completed a half-marathon every day in May to raise funds for Tayside Mountain Rescue.
He was inspired to gather cash for the essential service having climbed all 68 Munro, Corbett, Graham and Donald hills in Perthshire during coronavirus travel restrictions.
Daniel, who is no stranger to tests of extreme endurance, averaged one hour, 48 minutes and 28 seconds per half-marathon across the 31 days of the month. He ran a total of 406 miles.
“During lockdown and to avoid travel restrictions I climbed all the Munros, Corbetts, Grahams and Donalds in Perthshire,” Daniel said.
“Those were 60 hills over 2000ft and, while I was doing that, I thought it would be good to raise money for Tayside Mountain Rescue.
“If anything went wrong when I was on the hills, it would be them I would need to call.
“I then came up with the idea of running 31 halfmarathons in 31 days.
“When I set out I thought to keep them all under two hours. But I did a little better than expected and averaged one hour 48 minutes.
“On day 17 I aggravated an old knee injury and moved to flatter routes, doing the remaining half-marathons around the North Inch.
“It was a lot of laps. Nine laps make up the halfmarathon but I managed to get it finished, fitting them around work and family life.”
The PA previously covered Daniel taking on 10 marathons in 10 days down at Lake Windermere a couple of years back.
“I had my own physio for that,” Daniel explained. “With this latest challenge, I was needing to motivate myself to go out.
“When you are struggling to walk but need to make yourself run a halfmarathon, it can be quite difficult.
“I had a few friends run a half a dozen of them with me
Daniel Kershaw was delighted to raise so much for Tayside Mountain Rescue and that proved helpful.
“I didn’t know whether I could complete the challenge. You can always get injured or simply have done too much.
“But I like to set challenges that I don’t know if I’ll complete because it adds the extra mystery factor and makes it exciting.
“I often run more than one
A noise app has helped Perth and Kinross Council resolve noisy neighbour cases and led to one anti-social behaviour order.
The news was revealed at PKC housing and communities committee meeting last Monday.
One Perth councillor said noise was one of the biggest issues facing council tenants in her ward.
At Monday’s meeting Councillor Sheila McCole asked about the new noise app being deployed.
A report presented to the committee said PKC’s safer communities team tested and obtained a new noise app in 2019/20 which had proved“very popular” enabling residents to evidence noise levels.
The Perth City South councillor said:“Noise is one of the biggest issues I have from council tenants.”
Councillor McCole asked how many noise complaints were made to PKC and then actually resolved.
The SNP councillor added:“Most of the cases I have where a noise detector is provided it’s inconclusive or it rarely results in a resolution for the person who’s suffering the noise from their noisy neighbours.”
She wondered if the noise app might be more beneficial.
Head of housing Clare Mailer said:“I would say the noise app has been a very successful addition to the toolbox the housing officers and the safer communities team have.
“As you know we often use the noise monitoring machine and tenants and residents had to wait for this to be available.
“So that certainly has been a huge help in terms of gaining information much more quickly and indeed has led to improved performance – from our point of view – in terms of responding to and resolving neighbour issues.”
An officer told the committee the app was “a really good piece of tech”and achieving outcomes in closing cases down although some have kept occurring.
The council officer revealed over 195 people registered for the noise app and out of that 78 are still under investigation.
She said 81 were investigated and closed and one went on to an anti-social behaviour order.
Councillors were told the evidence from the app was really helpful and had allowed PKC to get an anti-social behaviour order on this more serious case.
If anyone has a noise issue they should contact PKC’s Safer Communities Team who can then advise on the best course of action on SCT@pkc.gov.uk or call 01738 476173.