New research from HACAN challenges official Noise Action Plans
Plan for Heathrow (1), campaign group HACAN today released statistics which show
that aircraft noise has become a real problem in areas many miles from the airport.
Heathrow and just a stone’s throw from the House of Parliament. The research
found that as many as 39 planes an hour, the majority of them over 70 decibels,
flew over Vauxhall. The picture, above, shows the exact planes (33 in total)
which went over Vauxhall in one hour earlier this month (2).
such as Vauxhall. There will be no measures to deal with them in the Noise Action
Plan.
proposals for tackling aircraft noise (4). HACAN argues that BAA’s proposals
will be ‘totally inadequate’ to deal with the situation.
conurbations of more the 250,000 people, for the busiest roads and railways and
for airports with more than 50,000 movements a year. DEFRA, the government department
responsible for noise action plans, has asked BAA itself to draw up the action
plans for Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted.
The Government has off-loaded its responsibility on to BAA. BAA’s plan will only
contain things they were going to do anyway. Certainly their initial draft was
completely inadequate. It didn’t even attempt to deal with the real noise issues
affecting communities. That is the reason why we have produced our own report."
on 8th June. The Government is expected to submit its final plans to the European
Union by the end of tENDS
8th June.
picture needs to be credited to Weedon/Hartleben