Noise News
Below are links to stories about noise in relation to airports and aviation.
HACAN East suggested letter of objection to London City Airport re: its plans to concentrate flight paths
London City Airport are conducting a consultation on airspace changes, which started on 4th September. It ends on 27th November. It aims to concentrate flight paths, in line with the intentions of UK air traffic control service, NATS. Concentrating flights along narrow corridors is more efficient for air traffic control. Instead of a swathe of perhaps 2 miles wide along which planes are directed, they can now follow a 100 metre track. This means fewer people in total are overflown; but for those unlucky enough to live under the new concentrated route, the noise can be deeply unpleasant. London City airport chose not to give any warning about the changes to local councils or local residents. It is not leafleting any areas, nor holding public meetings to explain the proposals. The areas particularly affected are Bow, Leytonstone, Wanstead, Colliers Row, Dagenham, Hornchurch, Catford, Dulwich, Brixton, Stockwell and Vauxhall. It is deeply inequitable. Local campaign group, HACAN East, will be holding a public meeting. They also have a simple template letter people can send in, to express their views. The lengthy consultation document is hard for laypeople to clearly understand.
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Hounslow spending £150 million trying to limit Heathrow plane noise from 40 local schools
Hounslow has a plane landing or taking off over it at least once per minute for most of the day. With noise loud enough to make it difficult to hold a conversation outside while a plane goes over, and loud enough to make speech and teaching difficult indoors, this is a serious problem for schools under Heathrow's flight path. The airport is well aware of the issue and that children have little option but to be in schools there. A teacher at a primary school some 2km from the airport’s south runway, said: “We’re in classrooms where we have to shut the blinds, we have to stop speaking, the air quality’s not very good and in the summer the temperature soars. But you can’t open the windows because of the noise, so it’s like we’re in a greenhouse melting.” Hounslow now has a £150m school rebuilding programme which aims to provide quieter classrooms in 40 schools under Heathrow’s flight path, over 5 years, partly by a heavyweight construction approach that incorporates a highly insulated concrete structural envelope. This cuts noise and gives more thermal stability. Unless there is proper ventilation, and air cooling in summer, just triple glazing and closed windows are not enough.
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Heathrow says flight paths being tested are “not indicative of future flight paths” Really?
Heathrow airport has managed to thoroughly upset and anger thousands or residents in areas affected by its flight path trials. The airport had some 500 complaints per day last month - the highest number in its history, and it can barely cope with them. There has been particular anger that there was no warning about the trials, even to the Mayor's office or to local councils. The flight path changes are part of a drive to overhaul the UK’s airspace by 2020 and use more accurate precision navigation technology - which means narrow, concentrated flight paths that make things easier for air traffic control, to get more planes into the same airspace. NATS wants this "for the UK to remain competitive." How Heathrow's PR people have said that the routes being tested “are not indicative of future flight paths”. But that seems difficult to believe. Looking at maps produced by Heathrow earlier, for the Airports Commission, the routes there seem to be remarkably similar to those on trial, over Ascot and nearby areas. The document says they are "indicative and subject to consultation". When is an indicative flight path not indicative ?
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Heathrow bows to extent of flight path fury by bringing end of trails forward to 12th November
On 28th August Heathrow started flight path trials, testing if flight paths could be concentrated, over flying slightly fewer people - but creating far more noise for those now under the narrow flight paths, used by more planes. As soon as the trials began people were upset, disturbed and annoyed at the noise misery that had been perpetrated upon them. Protests rapidly sprang up in the Ascot, Windlesham, Lightwater, Bagshot, Teddington, Twickenham and other areas. Heathrow has been stunned by, and swamped by, the number of complaints, and has not been able to cope. Now, as a damage-limitation exercise, Heathrow has announced it will cut its trials short, ending on 12th November, rather than the original end date of 26th January 2015. In addition, trials due to start on 28th October will be postponed till autumn 2015. This is good news for those who have been suffering. However, it is not a decision to stop growth in Heathrow flights - or noise. Cynics might say that these decisions are to ensure there is less protest about flight paths between now and the May 2015 election, and the Airports Commission decision on a new runway, expected after the election, next summer.
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“We didn’t think you’d notice”: Heathrow ‘apologises’ for not informing residents of new flight paths
Matt Gorman, the sustainability director of Heathrow airport, has told people in the Bracknell and Ascot areas why they were not given notice of the flight path trials overhead. He said: “We didn’t go as far as sending letters out to all the people that would be affected as we did not feel people would notice any change.” This is scarcely credible, unless Heathrow does not follow the news about rival Gatwick at all. The flight path trials at Gatwick have provoked massive opposition, with thousands highly angry and upset. Gatwick also decided not to give the public prior warning of their trial. At a Gatwick Consultative Committee meeting in January 2014, Gatwick's Head of Corporate Responsibility, said: "If people were aware of the trial it was possible that they would be more alert to changes and feel obliged to comment.” That backfired spectacularly. Another classic Heathrow comment recently, from Nigel Milton, to a meeting in Stanwell on 15th September, when asked why past Heathrow promises were allowed to be broken said: “The people who made those promises weren’t in a position to make these promises.” But the comment was made by the then BAA chairman, Sir John Egan. So Heathrow chairmen's promises should not be taken seriously?
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Residents of west Kent pleased that Gatwick will delay decision on controversial airspace consultation
Gatwick will be delaying the decision on their very controversial flight path changes, to the delight of campaign groups across west Kent, and their local MPs. People have been experiencing, and complaining vociferously about, an increase in night flights, plane noise and low-flying aircraft. The Gatwick noise complaint lines have been swamped, and people have not been given satisfactory responses by the airport. Gatwick is postponing their plans till next year, but it is believed this is only being done in order to prevent further bad publicity during the Airports Commission consultation, starting this autumn. Opponents of the airport's 2nd runway say that if Gatwick are truly serious about "being a good neighbour they would publish what people really think to help the Commission decide." Gatwick said in a statement that they would "Reflect further on the feedback received during local consultations," "Undertake detailed analysis work on final route options," "Undertake further work on the possibility to introduce more respite for residents most affected by noise," and "Consider how Gatwick can engage better on any new flight change options." But just talking to people about noise does not reduce it. They want they want less noise, not more "engagement."
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Heathrow lodges appeal with Planning Inspectorate over protection of Cranford against take-offs
Heathrow has lodged an appeal with the Planning Inspectorate over the London Borough of Hillingdon’s refusal, in March, to grant permission for taxiway infrastructure. If the government inspector approves the appeal, it would allow Heathrow to alternate the use of both its runways, regardless of wind direction. At present, due to the "Cranford Agreement", made in the 1950s, planes cannot take off from the northern runway, to the east, except in exceptional circumstances. When there are easterly winds, planes therefore have to land from the west, on the northern runway, but take off from the southern runway. Ending the Cranford Agreement would give Windsor residents more respite, with up to 50% cut in the number of planes currently landing from the west of Windsor. The Cranford Agreement was formally ended in 2010, but to operate on easterly operations, Heathrow says the taxiways are required. But ending the Cranford Agreement will mean more noise, on easterly operations, for those in Old Windsor, Horton and Wraysbury, while residents in Windsor would get a better deal. People can submit comments - by 19th November.
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Public meeting to be held in Ascot on Monday 13th October on Heathrow flight path trials
Royal Borough of Ascot councillor, David Hilton, has taken on responsibility for organising ta public meeting on 13th October (7pm) in Ascot, on the matter of Heathrow flight paths trials. The number attending the meeting is not known, but Mr Hilton said “It’s hard to say how many people will turn up, however there have been more complaints on this issue than any other issue raised, even more than the complaints I received about Heatherwood Hospital." The meeting will be at the Pavilion in Ascot Racecourse. Representatives from NATS and the CAA will be at the meeting to answer residents’ questions, and Nigel Milton from Heathrow will make a presentation before answering queries. Meanwhile, about 70 crammed into a meeting of Sunninghill and Ascot Parish Council last Tuesday. That had been the first chance people from the area had to address officials about the flightpaths trial. People are really concerned and frustrated about the situation. Cllr Hilton advised residents to complain whenever they are disturbed by noise, and not only once. "“It’s more like a trial of the local people’s patience and resistance to noise.”
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Heathrow flight path trial over Teddington & Twickenham “could be shortened” due to volume of complaints
The Heathrow flight path trial affecting Teddington and Twickenham could be shortened - from its due end on 26th January 2015 - due to pressure from thousands of residents. Heathrow has temporarily changed easterly departure routes as part of the Government's future airspace strategy, but the move has prompted an average of 350 complaints per day affected by the noise increase. An online petition, run by TeddingtonTown.co.uk, has received thousands of signatures from people furious with the increased noise from planes and those calling for an end to the trials. Twickenham MP Vince Cable has stepped in and demanded an urgent meeting with senior management at the airport. He said: "There has always been a problem with easterly take offs over local residences, especially late at night, but the latest trials have had especially serious impacts in Teddington." Mr Cable knows well that the increased noise is a sign of what could happen on a permanent basis if there is a 3rd runway. There is due to be a public consultation about defining permanent routes in 2016 and the final decision is taken by government.
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GACC confirms that Gatwick’s Noise Action Plan is just a regurgitation of the old one, barely changed
The Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign, (GACC) has checked through the Noise Action Plan that the airport has put out, as a revised plan. The prospect of a better plan may have raised the hopes of thousands of people affected by aircraft noise that there would be some significant changes,. But those hopes have been quickly dashed. The plan is little more than the Noise Action Plan which was published in November 2013 and, after a rushed consultation, submitted to the Government in February 2014. It is still dated Nov 2013. A significant failing of the Plan is that it was submitted to the Government before the introduction of new concentrated departure routes and before the recent consultations on departure and arrival routes, so there are now many more people with an interest than when it was written. Many of the promised actions have already taken place – and people find them disappointing. The promised "respite" has not yet materialised. Contrary to what is said in the Noise Action Plan, Gatwick is encouraging airlines to fly more night flights. And so on.