Belfast City airport inquiry delayed by noise pollution report
Airport is to be delayed amid a dispute over a noise pollution report submitted
by the airport.
120m from the south west.
planes using the runway.
letters of support sent to the authorities over the scheme.
inquiry into the plans.
start until it gets more information from the airport about possible noise pollution.
but couldn’t comment further at this stage.
at the outset instead of that the Planning Appeals Commision has made quite clear,
that the information isn’t accurate or comprehensive.
this is going to have on residents.
with flights going on right through until midnight and continual noise that’s
disrupting their sleep.
could take on more fuel to fly further.
airport, including Brussels, Frankfurt, Madrid and Munich.
it puts their plans back until at least 2012.
which has halted the public inquiry into the proposed runway extension at George
Best Belfast City Airport.
inquiry until the Department of the Environment obtains more robust and complete
noise-related environmental data from the airport.
information once the inquiry hearings were underway, but the Commission has refused
to accept this proposal, making it clear this could give rise to an undue delay
as in the Sprucefield public inquiry.
Steering Group, said:
proposal by the Planning Service which would have given a really unfair advantage
to the airport.
residents and other objectors would have had scant time to scrutinise it properly
and we would have been at a real disadvantage.
submitted to date by the airport – information which was heavily criticised by
the Civil Aviation Authority in a report commissioned and initially suppressed
by the Planning Service."
noise information submitted by the airport in support of its plan. In its report,
the CAA, which is the UK’s official aviation regulator:
its future air traffic forecasts in stark contrast to other UK airports making
similar planning applications
noise impact resulting from a runway extension was misleading and had seriously
underestimated the potential scale of the problem
would be little to prevent huge aeroplanes, such as A310 Airbuses and Boeing 757s,
from using the airport
official cap on its passenger numbers by nearly one million more passengers than
is actually permitted under the airport’s existing planning agreement with the
Planning Service
requests to publish the CAA’s report, which was completed in November 2009, on
the basis that it was an ‘internal’ document. Its damning contents eventually
came to light in March this year.
runway would enable planes to carry larger loads of passengers and fuel, leading
to heavier aircraft and greater levels of noise. The proposal would also enable
the airport to greatly expand its operations.
of the proposed runway length alone, it would be possible to operate larger aircraft
from the extended runway, possibly with some adaptations to ground infrastructure.
inquiry, the Commission also refers to the need for fuller information on comments
received from objectors and supporters to the airport’s application. In a response
to a Freedom of Information request by BCAW, the Planning Service recently revealed
that 2,209 of the 2,242 "letters of support" it received with regard to the application
were actually postcards.
groups across affected areas within east and south Belfast, and north Down. For
more information on the campaign, visit:
correspondence can be viewed at: