AN INTERACTIVE noise and air pollution map shows the areas of Andover which are most and least affected.

The map can be filtered to show different types of noise pollution, including road noise and rail noise, and is colour coded to reflect how severe the pollution is.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the areas closest to major roads - in the Andover area, the bypass (A303), followed by Winchester Road, the A342, and the A343 - experience the highest levels of noise pollution.

This makes Andover Business Park, Burghclere Down, and Picket Twenty, some of those worst affected areas - with noise levels of up 75dB.

One the other end of the scale are areas including Andover town centre itself, as well as more rural places including Appleshaw and Abbotts Ann.

Strategic noise maps and action plans are required to be produced every five years. The noise maps are produced using detailed three-dimensional geographic models of England.

The three-dimensional data is overlaid with transport models of relevant parts of the road and railway network, which details vehicle types, speed, etcetera.

This data is loaded into sophisticated calculation software which implements a calculation algorithm to calculate the levels of noise generated at and propagated from the transport network.

Want to see how your area fares? You can view the map here: http://www.extrium.co.uk/noiseviewer