Noise News
Below are links to stories about noise in relation to airports and aviation.
Gatwick airport makes a few cosmetic changes to its Noise Action Plan – not actually reducing noise
Gatwick airport has added a few, small changes to the Noise Action Plan that it wrote in November 2013. The airport says this is in response to comments they received to their airspace consultation from Oct 2013 to Jan 2014. The few changes will do very little to actually reduce noise. Logically, that will not be possible, with ever increasing numbers of flights. However, the changes include: "Explore whether ‘rotating respite’ can be provided to communities most affected by noise from aircraft;" increasing CDA landings (already doing that); more consultation with residents (in the vain hope this deflects opposition); "commission noise studies to gain an insight into the noise climate" (ongoing); Request that the DfT explores ways to describe and measure aircraft noise more clearly to help people understand noise impacts;" "Gatwick Airport Ltd will write to the DfT requesting research be undertaken to fully understand the effects of aircraft ion human health;" (by 2018) and "Commission public studies on noise impacts on particular areas." So not a lot of action by Gatwick itself. Or any action at all really. A bit more PR - requiring careful reading of the small print.
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Mary Dejevsky: “Momentum is gathering behind Heathrow’s 3rd runway. We need to stop it in its tracks”
Writing in the Independent, Mary Dejevsky writes persuasively about the real issue of noise from Heathrow airport, affecting perhaps half a million Londoners. She says it is only near the airport that noise is monitored, regulations apply and residents qualify for insulation. "Noise elsewhere on the flight-path is not regarded by the aviation authorities as any real nuisance." And complaining is unrewarding and ineffective. "The Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, told the Labour Party conference yesterday that all options for a new runway were on the table, including Heathrow." Mary pours scorn on the distasteful full-page ad by Heathrow recently, a small child and implying (unconvincingly) that her future welfare is dependent on a 3rd Heathrow. Mary says what is not mentioned in the advert is "the noise and the pollution not just around the existing airport, but the noise, pollution and safety considerations that somehow don’t count because they are not absolutely on the airport perimeter." And "what about other little girls, and the parents who hold down demanding jobs and collect them from school, despite losing a couple of hours sleep a night, are they not “stakeholders” in the country and its transport system, too?"
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Big protest in Queens, New York, against unacceptable level of aircraft noise from La Guardian & JFK airports
People living near La Guardia airport, and JFK airport in New York have been protesting against the aircraft noise to which they are being subjected. On 14th September, the local community group, "QUEENS QUIET SKIES" organized a rally of 250 - 300 people against the plane noise, saying the residents are fed up with the noise. Residents say changes over the past few years have made backyards (=gardens) unusable and had a very negative effect on their neighbourhoods. They want less noise, with the acceptable noise level reduced to 55 decibels from the current 65-decibel day-night average sound level. This could be done by more dispersed flights. They also want better noise abatement programs. People in Queens want the issue of aircraft noise tacked on a national level, and say the current noise standard, which has been in place since the 1970s, "is no longer a reliable measure of the true impact of aircraft noise." As it England and elsewhere the impact is that people can no longer enjoy sitting in the garden, a barbeque with friends - or even just the basic "luxury" of opening the windows on a hot day. One commented: “No one should be subjected to planes flying at low altitudes at one-minute intervals for 18 hours a day every day. Enough is enough.”
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Heathrow flight path trials branded an “omnishambles” by councillors, given no prior warning (and then asked to back 3rd runway)
During a full Bracknell Forest Council meeting on 17th a motion put forward by Councillor Marc Brunel-Walker to ensure the borough’s residents views are considered by the airport was unanimously carried. The motion came after councillors received complaints from people in Winkfield, Warfield, Binfield and Ascot who noticed a large amount of planes flying over their homes in July. Local MP Adam Afriye, who himself lives in Old Windsor, knows the problem. He has said he will continue his 10-year campaign to fight any changes in flights which expose residents to higher levels of aircraft noise. He has received extensive correspondence from distressed residents who feel the aircraft noise pattern has changed and is now unbearable. Bracknell councillors are very angry they were not consulted by Heathrow in advance of the trials. One councillor said he was disgusted to receive no information about the trial, but at the same time get a letter asking him to back Heathrow’s campaign for a 3rd runway. He said: “This has been an own goal in PR terms, the only way to describe it is an omnishambles....The irony of neighbours receiving this letter should not escape any of us."
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Anger as Heathrow’s latest flight path trials subject thousands to unacceptable noise levels
Heathrow is conducting trials of new flight paths, both to the west and to the east of the airport. Since the easterly trial started (28th July) and the westerly trial started (25th August) the airport has been swamped with complaints. The complaints line can no longer cope. For many people, there has been a sudden and unacceptable increase in noise. The changed, concentrated, routes have been blamed for the "unacceptable and intolerable" noise above a number of Surrey villages. Some of the worse affected areas to the west are Englefield Green, Egham, Thorpe, Virginia Water, Windlesham, Bagshot, Lightwater, Sunninghill and Ascot. Petitions to the airport have been set up in Ascot, Lightwater and now in Englefield Green, asking that the trials be stopped. People feel that even after the end of the trials that ended in June, the increased noise from them has continued. People living under the new, concentrated, routes are now subjected to more, louder, aircraft noise as late as 11.50pm and as early as 6am. The purpose of all this is to get more flights off Heathrow's runways, so the airport can be more profitable for its foreign owners.
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Teddington petition to Heathrow to stop the easterly departures trial and not allow it to become permanent
Finding themselves now affected by a newly concentrated flight path for Heathrow easterly departures, people in Teddington are now up in arms about the intensified noise. The trial started on 28th July and is due to last till 15th January 2015. They have set up a petition, to Heathrow, to ask that the current noise level does not continue. The flight path trials are part of the Future Airspace Strategy (FAS) with the aim of getting ever more planes using Heathrow, more efficiently. People in Teddington are angry that Heathrow have stated that: "Before the trials started in December last year we briefed local authorities; residents groups; campaign groups and MPs around Heathrow" yet Heathrow will not provide any details on who was contacted and when. In reality most people were not informed or warned. They would have liked to have been informed (so much for airports stating how much better they are getting at communication with communities ....). The affected residents are calling on Heathrow to halt these trials as soon as possible due to the negative impact on the quality of life they are causing for many people. They also call on Heathrow to recommend that the flight path changes are not made permanent.
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Airport Operators Assn wants restrictions on building of new homes near airports, to limit noise complaints
The Telegraph reports on a study by the Airport Operators Association (AOA) that almost 6,000 new homes have been approved around airports in the past 3 years despite a government policy to reduce the number of people exposed to aviation noise. Since April 2011 some 5,761 homes have either been granted planning permission, started or completed construction close enough to an airport that significant annoyance from noise is deemed likely (they say this is within the 57 dB contour). There are more than 1,000 homes around Heathrow and London City airports, at least 300 around Manchester and more than 100 around Aberdeen, Birmingham, Glasgow and Luton. Many more housing developments are planned in areas afflicted by loud aircraft noise. The AOA does not want more complaints, or demands for reductions in noise, from all these extra people being over-flown. They do not want planners to allow more developments which will restrict aircraft noise. Some 2,000 homes are now being built in north Crawley, in an area now at risk of serious noise if a 2nd runway is built, as planners wrongly believed Sir David Rowland's assurance, in Feb 2010 that Gatwick had “not a shred of interest” in a 2nd runway. A deeply unsatisfactory situation.
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Formula 1 boss’s fury over new Heathrow aircraft noise – at least with Formula 1 people know where the noise is
A significant Formula One car racing engineer, who lives in Sunninghill under a Heathrow flight path test route, has joined an increasing band of residents complaining about the new flight paths over Bracknell and Ascot. He describes them as “intolerable”. The chief technical officer at Formula One team Red Bull Racing has hit out at Heathrow after its new trial flight paths started last Thursday, for 5 months. The aims of the trials are to try to reduce 'stacking’, speeding up departure times to cut departure intervals, so increasing airport profits. He said though having lived in Sunninghill since 1997 and the noise has never been an issue before. "It is pretty intolerable because currently we have planes flying over our heads at 11pm at night .... it’s very antisocial really. ....I can’t even sit in my garden and socialise with my friends because it is just too noisy. There has been no proper consultation..." Realising he himself works in a very noisy industry, he said "... with Formula One is that there are no new race tracks being built anywhere, so people who buy houses next to race tracks know what they are getting.” There is an active petition in the Ascot area against the flight path trials, with around 2,400 signatures today.
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Campaigners call on CAA to suspend consultation on City Airport flight paths
Campaign group HACAN East has written to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to ask it to suspend the current consultation being carried out by London City Airport into flight path changes in East London. HACAN East argues that the tens of thousands of residents who are in line to get more planes over-head if the flight path changes go ahead are not being told about them. London City is proposing to concentrate the flights taking off from the airport in a narrow corridor, but its location is not being made clear enough. Areas directly under the favoured flight path will be Bow, Hackney Wick, Leyton Midland Road, Leytonstone, Barkingside and Colliers Row - but the airport is not leafleting these areas. People will just not realise the full impact till it is too late. New computer technology can now guide aircraft much more accurately [like satnav for planes, enabling an aircraft to fly a very exact route] when landing and taking off. It gives airports the option of varying the routes the planes use in order to give all residents some respite from the noise or of concentrating all the planes on one route. London City has chosen to concentrate the aircraft.
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London City Airport accused of creating a “noise ghetto” with proposed concentrated flight paths
London City Airport have started a consultation on airspace changes (4th September to 27th November) as it wishes to alter flight paths. The change will be because instead of less accurate navigation by aircraft, they now can fly using a very accurate form of satnav for planes. This is referred to as RNAV, meaning precision navigation, by which aircraft can all fly a course accurate to within a few hundred metres. The effect is concentration of flight paths, so most fly the exact same route, and anyone living under that route gets all the planes, and all the noise. Campaign group HACAN East has accused London City Airport of failing to spell out to tens of thousands of residents in East London that they are in line to get many more planes overhead if proposed flight path changes go ahead. The consultation does not make this clear. Areas directly under the favored flight path - and the concentration -will be Bow, Hackney Wick, Leyton Midland Road, Leytonstone, Barkingside and Colliers Row. The effect will be to create a noise ghetto. Air traffic controllers like concentration of flight paths. However, it is often better - less unfair - to share out the noise burden, so many people get some flights, rather than a few getting them all.