Noise News
Below are links to stories about noise in relation to airports and aviation.
CAA to have an Environmental Sustainability Panel, to advise it, from April
The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is creating a new Environmental Sustainability Panel, from April 2022. It will act as an expert 'critical friend' of the organisation and will provide technical advice. The intention is that it will ensure that environmental and "sustainability" interests are properly considered by CAA when it makes decisions. This will be an internal body, not public facing. The CAA is recruiting members for the panel, which will help the CAA to take proper account of the "environmental interests and impacts in its regulatory policy and framework." As the government decided in September 2021 to close the ICCAN (Independent Commission on Civil Aviation Noise) the CAA will have more duties relating to aircraft noise and the impact it has on people overflown. In the vain attempt to reduce the negative environmental impact of air travel, the CAA hopes to "balance" the need to reduce carbon emissions (ie. fuel burn) with the amount of aircraft noise. The panel will follow the model of the CAA's existing Consumer Panel.
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The Aviation Communities Forum and the Aviation Environment Federation join forces
The Aviation Communities Forum (ACF) was set up in 2015 following a number of airspace change trials and has always worked very closely with the team at the Aviation Environment Federation (AEF), supporting each other on noise and airspace policy issues. There are mutual advantages in bringing the two organisations together under the AEF, and so that will start from 1st January 2022. This initiative will embed the ACF’s noise and airspace work in a more robust membership and governance structure and give it more access to social media capability and potentially funding. For AEF, it will increase the organisation’s capacity on noise and airspace issues, and help to ensure that policy positions are consistently well informed by people’s personal experience of these impacts. There will be benefits to the members of both organisations, which in any event overlap very substantially.
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Local MP, Bim Afolami, and community groups ask Gove to call-in Luton expansion plans
Bim Afolami, MP for Hitchin and Harpenden, has called on the government to review plans to allow for a million more passengers per year through Luton Airport, rising from 18 million to 19 million. On 2nd December, Luton Borough Council (which owns the airport and decides its planning applications) approved the airport's expansion plans and varying the noise conditions it operates under. Now Bim Afolami has asked Communities Secretary Michael Gove, at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) to "call-in" the decision. The DLUHC says it would consider requests for a call-in, taking the decision from the council, to government. This is usually when an application has wider impacts than just the local area, which Luton's extra flights definitely would. Another reason for call-in is if an application conflicts with a national policy - climate in this case. Bim said the decision to approve the expansion "completely ignores the environmental and cross-boundary impact". Local groups, including the Luton and District Association for Control of Aircraft Noise (LADACAN) and Harpenden Sky, have also written to the Minister asking for call-in.
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Kent County Council KCC strongly opposes Gatwick’s northern runway proposals
Kent County Council (KCC) has responded to Gatwick Airport’s consultation strongly opposing plans to routinely use its northern runway for departing aircraft. The plans would see the airport grow - if things go Gatwick's way - from 46.6 million passengers per annum (MPPA) in 2019 to 75.6 mppa by 2038. The council's response is in line with their existing Policy on Gatwick Airport, which was adopted by Cabinet in 2014. KCC Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport, David Brazier said: “KCC has long argued the impacts of Gatwick’s current single runway configuration are already unacceptable, and a potential increase of these impacts on local communities and the environment would be intolerable" with the extra flights and noise. They are also concerned about the increased carbon emissions, and the pressure on public transport to and from Kent. KCC says the project would have a significant material impact on the Government’s ability to meet carbon reduction targets. Also that the full extent to which communities and the environment will be impacted will not be properly assessed or appropriately mitigated.
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Luton Council approves plans for Luton to increase from 18 to 19 mppa
In February, Luton airport submitted a planning application to Luton Borough Council (its owner) to increase the annual cap on passenger throughput from 18m to 19mppa. Also to expand the day and night noise contours by 11.3% and 15.3% respectively until 2028. Now Luton Borough Council has approved the plan to increase to 19 million - and the plans to change the noise contours, to the huge disappointment of many local groups already negatively affected by aircraft noise. The Council said this application did not affect the airport's long term proposals to increase capacity to 32 million per year, which would be determined by government, through a DCO, not the council. The airport is owned by a company that has changed its name to Luton Rising - and that is owned by Luton Council. How well the airport will do in future years is unknown, with the impact of Covid, targets for aviation to become "carbon neutral" and growing awareness of the climate impact of air travel. Luton's passenger numbers dropped almost 70% between 2019 and 2020 due to Covid.
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Years of exposure to air pollution and road traffic noise may raise heart failure risk
Exposure to air pollution and road traffic noise over the course of many years may be associated with an increased risk of developing heart failure, and the correlation appears to be even greater in people who are former smokers or have high blood pressure, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association. The lead author commented: "Air pollution was a stronger contributor to heart failure incidence compared to road traffic noise; however, the women exposed to both high levels of air pollution and road traffic noise showed the highest increase in heart failure risk." And "To minimise the impact of these exposures, broad public tactics such as emissions control measures should be implemented. Strategies like smoking cessation and blood pressure control must be encouraged to help reduce individual risk." The data was part of a prospective study of over 22,000 members of the all-female Danish Nurse Cohort The women were 44 years of age and older at study enrolment and living in Denmark. Participants were recruited in 1993 or 1999. The study looked at NO2 and particulates, and took account of when and where the women moved house, over the years.
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Departing ICCAN tell Aviation Minister that the aircraft noise issue should be dealt with by an independent body, with “clout”
The DfT decided, at the start of September, that the Independent Commission on Civil Aviation Noise (ICCAN) would be closed down at the end of September. This happened even though there is no replacement for them, to give an independent voice on aircraft noise issues. The Commissioners have written to the Aviation Minster, Robert Courts. In their letter they say, on the breakdown of trust by overflown communities, the government and the aviation industry: "That breakdown was simplistically interpreted as an issue between airports and communities, although our work has revealed that there was also a disconnect between Government policy, regulation, industry and community ambitions." And "We hope you will look objectively at who is best to carry ICCAN’s work forward and we offer our views in good faith. However, for the vast majority of our work it is hard not to conclude that only a body independent of Government and aviation regulation, empowered with sufficient clout by the Government, can deliver a coherent programme for change in how aviation noise is managed."
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Airport groups write to Aviation Minister, voicing concerns about ICCAN being wound up
The DfT has decided to close down the ICCAN (the Independent Commission on Civil Aviation Noise) at the end of September. Now a large number of community groups at airports, for people negatively affected by aircraft noise, have written to the Aviation Minister, Robert Courts. They say they "were surprised and disappointed by your announcement that ICCAN will be wound up later this month and its functions transferred to the CAA next year. We were particularly surprised you saw no need to discuss this significant change with communities impacted by aircraft noise." ICCAN was supposed to "give communities a greater stake in processes which propose to make noise changes, and ensure such processes better and more transparently balance the needs of all parties" and "be instrumental in ensuring that the needs of local communities are properly taken into account when considering the noise impacts of any airport expansion." There are therefore serious concerns of overflown communities, in the absence of ICCAN. The letter suggests 4 key actions and changes that will need to accompany any transfer of roles to the CAA if it is to command the confidence of adversely impacted communities.
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Government will not review the Airports National Policy Statement, on any of the challenge grounds
The Government had the option of reviewing the Airports National Policy Statement (ANPS) after the legal challenges, which took place during 2019 and 2020. One key issue of the challenges was the impact on the UK's climate targets of allowing Heathrow to increase its carbon emissions by up to 50%. Now the DfT has decided it will not review the ANPS, so it continues to be the underlying policy through which Heathrow could expand. The airport still has to go through the Development Consent Order (DCO) process, to get approval for a 3rd runway. Grant Shapps, Transport Secretary of State, says that even though the UK now has a target of 78% cuts in CO2 emissions by 2035 and international aviation should be included in that target (compared to 1990 levels) and "considers that it is not possible to conclude properly that any of the policy set out in the ANPS would have been materially different had these circumstances been anticipated at the time of designation [June 2018]." The overall impact of Heathrow expansion, combined with expansion of other airports, will be considered by the Planning Inspectorate at the DCO stage. It appears an opportunity to reduce UK aviation CO2 emissions has been missed, and government will do as little as possible on the issue.
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Gatwick’s Big Enough – a 2nd runway at Gatwick would be ‘disaster for the climate’
Protesters, organised through the Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign (GACC), gathered near the airport, chanting 'Gatwick is big enough', to express their opposition to the airport's plans to convert its standby runway into a runway for routine flights. Campaigners, residents and councillors held a peaceful demonstration next to a noise monitor in Charlwood, to coincide with the midnight launch of Gatwick's public consultation into its proposed expansion. Operating as a 2-runway airport would see Gatwick increase its annual passenger capacity from 62 million to 75m by 2038 - making it almost as large as Heathrow today. GACC chairman, Peter Barclay said the expansion of the airport would have negative impacts for people over a wide area - in terms of noise and air pollution, more night noise and sleep deprivation, and impacts on local infrastructure. All that affects people's quality of life. While humanity urgently needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, if we are to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change, it makes no sense d to allow Gatwick to expand, adding another 1 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.