Author: John Stewart

Here’s an odd thing.  The number of flights at Heathrow has more than doubled since the 1980s yet, according to official statistics, the number of people annoyed by the noise has fallen from 1.2million in 1980 to around 250,000.

But this is more than an historical curiosity.  It matters for the future because the Department for Transport’s National Policy Statement, Heathrow Airport and Sir Howard Davies all argue that if a third runway – with 700 more flights a day – is built fewer people will be annoyed by noise from Heathrow than are today.

In my view, the apparent contradiction is down to the inadequate way noise annoyance has been measured…….. 

What has surprised us during the General Election campaign is the level of previously silent opposition there is to a third runway at Heathrow amongst key candidates.

Campaigners opposed to a third runway attended over 20 ‘hustings’ meeting during the General Election Campaign.  I was at half a dozen of them. We also wrote to the key candidates. 

This is obviously only an estimate but on the basis of the responses campaigners received our best guess is this:

In the next Parliament there could be: 

• 36 London MPs opposed to a third runway; 
• 18 in favour; 
• 19 whose views are unclear.  

It’s rare I write a blog at 11 o’clock at night with tea and a scrumptious cream scone in my hand.  But that it what I did last night when I popped into see Pearl, one our long-standing members in Camberwell, on my way home from an election hustings in nearby East Dulwich.

I told Pearl about the constant noise from the planes as I left the East Dulwich meeting and we got talking about Heathrow’s plans, announced last week, to undertake the biggest change in flight paths since the airport opened in 1946, starting from ‘a blank piece of paper’.  Flight paths will be radically altered even it Heathrow fails in its attempt to build a third runway and remains a two runway airport.

Pearl said that said that these changes could transform her life if multi-flight paths could be introduced.  They would allow some relief each day from the all day-flying that she finds so hard to bear.  

More about how that could be done in a minute but first let Pearl introduce herself for this is really a joint blog:   

“It’s always rude to ask a lady her age so let’s just say I’m old enough to have two lovely children who’ve just settled into their first jobs but certainly not old enough to retire from my job as a check-out assistant at Tescos.  I came across from the West Indies 30 years ago and since then I have lived in the same estate in Camberwell.  It used to be called council housing.  Now it is known as social housing.  But it is still the same flat.  It is good for shopping and for public transport and we’ve got Burgess Park and Peckham Rye not far away.

It’s only the planes that really get me down.  I can’t afford to move away.  In fact I don’t really want to.  Only the planes make me think about it.  I sometimes dream of  just staying on in Bournemouth when summer holiday finishes..

I don’t think that my friends in West London understand that we, too, suffer aircraft noise 20 miles from Heathrow.  It was never like this 30 years ago when I moved in.”

Pearl and myself talked about the way the changed flight paths, driven by new technology, Precision-Based Navigation (PBN), would help the aviation industry.  It will enable planes to be guided more precisely, saving the airlines fuel, cutting CO2 emissions, allowing air traffic control to run a slicker operation with fewer staff and giving airports more resilience, the latter critical at a busy airport like Heathrow.

The challenge for Heathrow and for NATS (the air traffic controllers) to make sure the new technology also benefits local communities.  Twenty miles from the airport there is scope for multiple flight paths to be used to remove the curse of all-day flying from places like Camberwell and to give people like Pearl a break from the noise each day.  It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to improve the noise climate for hundreds of thousands of people.  If that happens, it becomes a win-win situation for the aviation industry and the local community.

But, according to Pearl, the rewards could be even greater: “I’ll give the people from Heathrow and air traffic control Earl Gray tea, served in my best china cups, with as many of my cream scones as they want if the can end all-day flying.  And, if they can do it quicker than before 2024 or 2025, I may even crack open a wee bottle of Jamaican rum with them.” 

Changing its flight paths: Heathrow’s chance to be a beacon for positive change

It’s the other big aviation story.  The focus has been on the third runway at Heathrow.  Perhaps inevitably, given the controversy it creates.  But the other big event over the next decade will be the flight paths changes that will take place at virtually every airport in the UK.  It will signal the biggest change in the use of airspace for over 60 years.  Indeed, it will be a worldwide phenomenon.

Heathrow has said it will be starting from ‘a blank piece of paper’ to put in place what would be the biggest change in flight paths since the airport opened in 1946.  Flight paths will be radically altered even it Heathrow fails in its attempt to build a third runway and remains a two runway airport.  

The change is being driven by new technology.  Precision-Based Navigation (PBN) is being introduced.  It enables planes to be guided more precisely, saving the airlines fuel, cutting CO2 emissions, allowing air traffic control to run a slicker operation with fewer staff and giving airports more resilience, the latter critical at a busy airport like Heathrow.

It can also in my view, if it is introduced well, benefit local communities.  The technology will enable aircraft to be concentrated along narrow flight paths.  That presents both dangers and opportunities.  The danger is that all the planes use those same flight paths all day long.  It is no exaggeration to say that would create noise ghettos.  But the opportunity presented by precision flying is that it enables multiple (concentrated) flight paths to be used and be rotated so each community can get a break from the noise every day.  Certainly for many communities under the Heathrow flight paths that would be an improvement on the situation today.  They don’t get pure concentration but they get all-day flying……and the HACAN mailbox is full of people desperate for a break from it.

There are some in the environmental movement who oppose multiple flight paths and respite.  Their argument is that it could potentially increase capacity at an airport.  If there is no cap on flight numbers at the airport, that may be the case but I believe that, in trying to deny local communities a break from the noise, they are in danger of putting ideology over people’s well-being.

So far the introduction of PBN-driven new flight paths has not been good.  There has been uproar in many American cities when the airports introduced concentrated flight paths without any respite.  When London City concentrated its routes last year complaints shot up four-fold.  Complaints also increased at Luton and Stansted when these airports introduced concentrated routes and no respite.  Gatwick has been forced to backtrack on its new routes and, at the time of writing, Edinburgh proposals, out for consultation, have generated controversy and heated protest meetings.

Belatedly, the Department for Transport, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and air traffic control realized things weren’t working properly.  The CAA has revised its guidance to include much earlier community involvement.  And in its recent consultation on Airspace Strategy, the Department proposed changes to the way new routes are introduced including the importance of respite being included as an option at airports where that is possible and popular. 

These problems experienced at the other airports put even more pressure on Heathrow to get it right.  Heathrow was already aware that, given the numbers under its flight paths, it risked a big-scale community revolt if it got its flight path changes wrong. 

It therefore intends to involve local communities at a very early stage.  It will start consulting on its airspace changes later this summer when it launches a 12 week consultation into the design principles people want to see the flight paths based on.  It will be seeking views on things like whether people want the flight paths concentrated on a few communities or the noise shared around more equally.  By then it will have published a major study into what meaningful respite would look like.

Heathrow will take some months to work up noise envelopes after the consultation on design principles finishes.  In summer 2018 it will consult on these noise envelopes.  The envelopes will show the broad swathes within which there will be flight paths.  They will not include the exact alignment of the flight paths but those who will be outside the swathes will know they will not be under a flight path.  There will be a further consultation on the detailed flight paths, probably late 2020, with a view to the new flight paths being in place by around 2025.

These will not be easy issues, particularly if, in order to give some communities respite, aircraft noise might need to be introduced into new areas.  HACAN will be engaging with the airport in order to try to get the best outcome for residents.  The pressure will be on Heathrow not just because of the numbers of people affected but to show that airspace changes can be introduced in a way which benefits residents.  Heathrow really does have the chance to be a beacon for positive change.  No pressure then?! 

On the day that the consultation about a third runway closes it is still my view that a new runway at Heathrow is far from a done deal.

There are still many hurdles for the airport to overcome.  So far it has got over just two of them: the recommendation of a third runway by the Airports Commission in July 2015 and then last October the announcement from Theresa May that a new runway at Heathrow was her Government’s preferred option.  

The next big hurdle will be the vote in Parliament later this year or early next year.  Technically, it is a vote on the National Policy Statement on Airports (NPS) but in reality it is about a third runway.  It would be a surprise, though, if Heathrow falls at this hurdle.  With a majority of Conservative and Labour MPs expected to back the NPS is likely to be approved.

Perhaps the one thing which could alter this, or certainly reduce the majority, is the growing realization that the economic benefits of a third runway have been significantly downgraded.  The Airports Commission put them at £211bn (over a 60 year period).  The Department for Transport now says they will be no more than £61bn, and a lot less if the costs of noise, air pollution etc are taken into account.  Heathrow’s promises to the regions were based on the higher figure.  There are signs that it is beginning to hit home to MPs representing these areas that the benefits to them might be a lot less than they were led to believe.

Even if a third runway does scale the NPS hurdle it could emerge as a different beast.  A number of MPs with whom HACAN has spoken are attracted by the idea of making their vote for a third runway dependent on tougher conditions than the Department for Transport is promising.  For example, there is growing backing for a night flight ban to be longer than six and a half hours.

But beyond the NPS further hurdles remain.

There will almost certainly be a legal challenge by Greenpeace and a number of local authorities.  The case will be led by the same legal team which mounted a successful challenge to the last Labour Government’s plans for a third runway 10 years ago so the chance of it succeeding cannot be discounted.  Certainly a number of the local authority leaders believe they have a strong case.  It would need, though, to be a decisive win to deal a knock-out blow to a third runway rather than simply force the Government to come back with an amended scheme.

Air pollution will continue to cast a pall of uncertainty over the third runway.  The previous Government’s air quality strategy, published a few weeks ago, appeared to suggest air pollution around Heathrow could not be sorted until at least 2030 – five years after the new runway would be due to open.  Governments can often wriggle out of environmental problems but its wriggle-room on air pollution may be limited given the fact air pollution is such a high-profile issue, certainly in London.  It is much less dominant outside the capital where leaders tend to see it as largely a London problem. 

A third hurdle is the continuing uncertainty over the costs of the road and rail infrastructure needed to serve a new runway:  how high will they be and who will pay them?  The consultation document did not clarify either question.  The costs have been put at anything between £5bn and £18bn.  Heathrow has said it will only pay its share of the costs which it puts at £1.bn.  I would not argue that Heathrow should pay all the costs because the wider economy will also benefit from the new road and rail schemes but until it is clear what costs will fall on the public purse and whether the new Government will be prepared to pay them, this remains a hurdle in the path of a third runway.

The final hurdle is the continuing opposition to a third runway.  I suspect we will only be able to gauge the actual strength of this opposition when more will be known about flight paths next year.  Heathrow is trying to involve the community as closely as possible in developing its flight paths (flight paths will change significantly even at a two runway airport due to the introduction of new technology).  This makes sense but they know and we know it is flight paths which are most likely get local communities truly engaged in the issue.  The flight paths hurdle is the joker in the pack. Nobody really knows how it will play out. 

So, as we await a new Government in a few weeks, we are about mid-point in the hurdles race and still uncertain if any of them will trip up Heathrow’s plans.  As a boy I thrilled to David Hemery’s gold medal win in the 800 metres hurdles in the 1968 Olympics – https://youtu.be/fzofxFyNuG4 (worth watching if only for David Coleman’s legendary commentary).  Hemery dominated the field.  If Heathrow get to the finishing tape, it will be a very different type of race: one hurdle, one formidable challenge, at a time.  And there are still plenty of them to come.