Heathrow is to spend hundreds of millions of pounds in an attempt to buy off local opposition to a proposed third runway, with plans to use a massive new fund to compensate homeowners and insulate homes and public buildings against aircraft noise.
With the airport set to publish detailed plans on Tuesday for a new runway to the north-west of its current perimeter, it is prepared to pay premium prices for properties in its path as well as to offer unprecedented sums for sound insulation from a £550m fund.
Around 750 homes would be compulsorily purchased and demolished if the scheme goes ahead. Heathrow would offer an exceptional 25% over the unblighted value of the houses (averaging £250,000) along with legal fees and stamp duty incurred for the purchase of new homes.
Allowing for a potential 15% rise in house prices, Heathrow would expect to spend at least £250m on soundproofing homes and schools – compared with only £30m it has spent on insulating properties in the last 20 years.
The third runway at Heathrow is the bookmakers’ favourite to be selected from three airport schemes shortlisted by the Airports Commission, led by Sir Howard Davies. An alternative Heathrow development proposed by the Heathrow Hub group, which owns options on land nearby, and a second Gatwick runway are still under consideration, along with the possible 11th-hour reinstatement of a new Thames estuary airport thought up by London mayor Boris Johnson.
A final recommendation will be made after the 2015 general election, although no party has pledged to implement Davies’s findings.
Noise has long been a pivotal issue around Heathrow, with surrounding boroughs such as Hounslow resisting expansion. Many residents report being woken daily at 5am by the first arriving flight, while teachers in schools under the flightpaths say lessons are frequently rendered inaudible by incoming planes.
Heathrow is planning another public consultation in July to decide how the money should be divided up. The size of the fund could conceivably see grants for insulation in areas beyond the “noise contour” of what was traditionally considered persistent disturbance.
A source said: “We want people to work with us to decide how that should be implemented. There are choices to be made on whether we focus resources on high noise areas or spread them thinner and further, whether it should be residential or community buildings. Do we insulate all schools to a gold standard, or would schools rather spend the money on better facilities?”
On Tuesday, Heathrow will publish a 400-page document setting out a revised plan for the third runway, slightly farther south than set out last year but still obliterating most of the village of Harmondsworth. The airport will also include a report from a public consultation underlining its belief that the alternative Heathrow Hub proposal – based on former Concorde pilot Jock Lowe’s vision of elongating the two existing runways for landing and takeoff, would be even more fiercely resisted locally, as it would jeopardise periods of respite for residents under the flightpaths.
Colin Matthews, chief executive of Heathrow, said: “We are committed to treating those most affected by a third runway fairly. Since the previous runway plan was rejected in 2010 we have listened to ideas for how we could improve our proposals. We recognise that the expansion of Heathrow deserves an exceptional compensation scheme. That’s why we’re going further than statutory schemes or government guidance.”
John Stewart, of Hacan (Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise), who chaired the coalition of anti-third runway protests last time round, said Heathrow’s move would mark “a whole new approach”. He said: “We’d always welcome generous terms of compensation and mitigation, but this has all the desperation of trying to buy off the opposition. Whether this will actually get Heathrow the third runway they desperately desire is very much open to question. Their new-found generosity is a clear sign that they are still not confident that they can get a third runway approved, agreed and built.”
But, he admitted: “Heathrow are playing a much cleverer game – we’ve never seen this sort of approach. For us, it’s a tougher and very different challenge.”
Heathrow is also proposing a congestion charge for drivers going to the airport, in an attempt to address concerns about air quality. While Heathrow constantly breaches EU limits for nitrogen dioxide levels in the air, it stresses that road traffic causes similar pollution around London.
The charge would aim to keep car use at current levels, even if a third runway was built, although Heathrow says it would only want a scheme to be implemented once upgrades to public transport links had been completed – including Crossrail and a new link to the Great Western mainline.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/10/heathrow-sweetener-third-runway
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A few of the comments below the article: (many are well worth reading – a cut above the usual level of commentary ….)
Another runway for the south of England? Does the English Parliament know that anything actually exists north of Watford? Is there not a big modern under-used airport in Birmingham?
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Sound insulation doesn’t work when windows are open.
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Air conditioning doesn’t work when windows are closed!
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Didn’t Cameron say ‘no ifs, no buts’ in relation to there not being a new runway at Heathrow? ……
Yes, but it was one of his ‘Cast Iron’ guarantees, hence meaningless. ……
Cast iron can be melted down again.
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The M25 is already hellish around Heathrow and another runway will make it even worse. The congestion charge will not work. It will just be another cost added on to your flight, if on business then the company will pay it, and if on leisure trips it will just be added onto the parking cost.
And it will make the south east even more crowded than it already is.
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he public transport links into Heathrow are a disgrace. It is ridiculous that the only direct rail routes out of the airport go east, and one of those is per-mile the most expensive in the world, while everyone else must make do with similarly expensive buses which are at the mercy of the horrendous traffic in the area… Traffic which largely results from dire public transport.
BAA now have advertising campaigns aggressively promoting car usage and parking at the airport. It is hard to imagine a more socially-irresponsible airport owner than then current one.
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So Heathrow acknowledges that car traffic generated by their airport breaches EU regulations, but are only prepared to act if we give them a third runway – they must be aware that the World Health Organisation has classified road (and aviation) air pollutants as being carcogenic and already on average each person in England dies 6 months earlier due to this pollution.
It is clear they need to clean up their act, and sort out the noise and air pollution from both ground and air traffic before even considering expansion.
In Denmark each ticket has a one euro levy for sound insulation, funny how those europeans consider their citizens quality of life more valuable than ours.
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So compulsory purchase orders are OK when you want to extend an airport but wrong when you need land to build houses?
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Meanwhile a nice little airport in Kent is going to be shut down and turned into a housing estate.
Why are we not encouraging domestic and short haul European flights to dealt with by smaller airports like Manston to free up capacity at the bigger airports for the bigger long haulers.
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‘Aviation is a growth industry’….what about the little matter of the pollution that emissions from jet aviation activity causes? Aviation cannot grow ad infinitum…best to get used to that.
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Government lied in 1945, and after, saying that this would be a military airport only (or very largely) for the protection of London.
Prevailing wind direction means that the normal approach to Heathrow is over London. This is dangerous. There have been two near disasters in the last few years (BA flight from China nearly crashing into Hounslow, making the runway end by a few yards, and another BA flight mistaking the Bath Road for a main runway).
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The aviation lobby in the UK are pathetic…everything is subservient to the need for ‘more and more runways’…for what, and at what cost? They bleat on about it being essential for business and commerce, whereas in fact most jet aviation is based on cheap flights leaving the Uk, taking money away from the UK economy, to be spent on foreign holidays.
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How much of this expected air traffic is carrying passengers who want to visit the UK? How much is carrying passengers who just want to transit to other destinations? How much must we pay to ensure the convenience of foreign travelers?
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It is absurd environmental recklessness that Heathrow (never mind the other London airports) has countless flights to such destinations as Manchester, Paris, Brussels, Leeds, Edinburgh, Glasgow. Once such shamefully inefficient and wasteful uses of resources have been eliminated then we can decide whether there is really any call for more runways.
BA insist new runways are necessary to maintain ‘connectivity’: Yet over the years they have axed direct flights to various capitals including Caracas, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and Kathmandu. More likely they simply want to pile even more flights onto the already well-served but lucrative Business/First-heavy routes like New York.
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again under the European Convention on Human Rights the Compulsory Purchase Act is illegal and incompatible with the Convention. So if people refuse to sell there is nothing the government can do.
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How would they stop noise intruding on people’s gardens and school playgrounds? Or what about when people might want to open their windows such as on hot days and other times? Paying for air conditioning would also mean paying the running costs and also the effect of running it on the environment.
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I often wonder if tjhere isn’t a deliberate plan to keep everything in London. Infrastructure for Manchester and Leeds airports is almost non existent. I imagine Birmingham and Liverpool are similar as will be other northern airports.
My sister has been high up in a few global companies which have thought of locating out of London but when there is no infrastructure it is pointess. Fly from NY to Manchester and the choice of getting to Leeds is a crap train service and a taxi service to get to where you want to go which ,if you are passing through the university zone, takes a lifetime. Leeds/Bradford airport has a taxi service or bus.
Not exactly infrastructure. Just imagine how a president of one of the biggest companies in the world sees the world outside London.
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What new runway? West London is just not having it. End of.
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All those billions of pounds needed to expand Heathrow and for what? A few extra passengers waiting in lounges and buying a coffee before jetting off again! Great ideology.
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The ruling classes still think everyone is motivated by money, buying people off, what use is insulation if you want to sit in your garden, what about people who have good well paid jobs in the area and don’t want to move, these houses in my view would be un-saleable. All I can see is, the authorities are happy to see residents under noise house arrest. Is there nothing in this country that matters anymore only business and money.
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Sound proofing homes…! ? Sound proofing never works satisfactorily. If it does, people living in the flight path of planes will have to breathe their own breath over and over again. And never go out.
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The conclusion is obvious – since LHR finds it impossible to stay within air pollution standards, it shouldn’t be a hub.
The EU and UK are not there to look after the interests of the International Airlines Group, BA’s private sector owner, and protect them. IAG is a mere economic artefact, it can deal with the consequences by lower growth, lower share price, lower executive compensation or all 3. There are several of other big airports not too far away which can act as hubs, even for UK traffic: AMS, BRU, DUB, GLA, CDG. This needs to be thought through in European rather than national and collaborative rather than competitive terms.
New York has 3 airports, is economically at least as strong as London, has 4 airports but no intracontinental hub anything like LHRs. There’s no reason why London should not be similar.
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Let’s kill off the idea of a third runway completely; there has been more than enough development in London and the south of England and it’s time there was more investment in the Midlands and North, and I don’t mean the waste of space that is HS2. There is more than enough capacity at the other regional airports in England, it being the case that it is often cheaper and more convenient to travel from these than having to drag oneself down to either Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton or Stanstead.
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Corporations will win in the end , if Dave dosen ‘t pull his finger out they will buy themselves a more compliant Prime Minister . There are big bucks to me made from this small piece of real estate. If it means shitting on the plebs under the flight path so be it. Our Judiciary may have been bought and paid for , thank goodness for the EU to put a spanner in the works .
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What possessed the Queen to build Windsor Castle right under the flight path?
precognition?Will she get free soundproofing or sell for the 25% over market values ,and costs of replacement elsewhere?
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