Why having a good mental health isn’t a right anymore? 

If 10 years ago, when I brought my house, someone had said to me one day you will be writing a blog on the effect of airplane noise on your mental health I may have paused for a thought, but after a mere second into that through would have completely dismissed it. Surely, the government would have to protect us from such a ludicrous suggestion, wouldn’t they? 

10 years later, it turns out I would have been wrong. Not when it comes to the airspace anyhow. We all know the government wants more planes in the sky. Theresa May wants to let the rest of the world know “the UK is open for business”, but no matter the cost to the health of the public it seems.  

I don’t want to get into the politics of what is right for the UK or not, I just want my pain to go away. The feeling of helplessness, anxiety and feeling trapped are now what I feel when I lay in bed at night. 

Before, I get too deep into how it feels to be depressed I would like to let you know how I became this way. The Department of Transport in 2013 made the decision to reduce the number of people effected by plane noise and pollution. Sounds great, right? What did they do, reduce the number of night flights or reduce the number of flights in general? No? Go on tell me, I sense you are thinking. They made the decision to concentrate all the flights over one area of a flight path. One flight path is around 3km wide, so all the planes that used that 3km wide flight path are now flying within a very small narrow corridor. 

The issue is now the technology used is so perfect a plane will follow the plane before, in exactly the same place and so on. Yes, on paper I guess it looked like it worked; less people should notice air traffic noise. I am not sure they noticed it before anyhow, I didn’t and I have lived in Hounslow, Twickenham, Teddington and Richmond before I brought a house 10 miles away from Heathrow. Their efforts to reduce the noise have in fact made matters so much worse for the fewer people under these flight paths than they ever were for the people they have reduced it for. 

So, now you know, I live under one of these concentrated flight paths. So, back to mental health.  It started off me being woken up by late flying planes and generally being upset with the increase in noise. I started to call Heathrow and ask what has happened, not knowing what a flight path was; I would ask questions like “have you changed the flight paths?” to which they would reply “no”. They were technically right and played off my lack of knowledge on flight paths.   

It continued to get worse and worse, so bad in fact I had to leave my job in the city. I just wasn’t sleeping and didn’t understand why. Heathrow told me they hadn’t changed anything; it must be me, I thought. 

This year the concentrated flight path got too much for me, one night I woken up at 3am and started to have a panic attract – it hit me, I had cracked. The signs where there, I had started to feel anxious about going to bed. I was becoming down at the thought of not sleeping. I would wait until I knew the last plane had gone over before I even went to the bedroom. I never had a panic attract before, I couldn’t breathe, my heart was beating so fast. I started to shout out “it is the noise, please stop the noise”. 

When we are on an easterly wind, this is when the planes are bad for me. I would now watch the weather on the news. Please don’t be on an easterly wind tomorrow, I would pray, oh thank god no easterly wind.  “Now for the weekend’s weather, we have a strong wind coming from the east on Saturday” the weather presentation would say. Oh shit, oh shit. My panic was setting in, it was only Thursday but I knew the weekend would be none stop noise. 

That night I would lie in bed, with my eyes filling up with tears knowing the noise was coming. That humming sound you hear in the distances that turns into a thunder across your house. Soon that will be over me and it will not stop until Heathrow want it to stop. 

Sounds bad, but unbelievably it is getting worse. 

One month ago, we had 2 weeks or so of easterly winds. This meant I had planes over me from 6am to 11.30pm (most nights it would be in fact midnight or later, due to delays at Heathrow). I broke down. I started to hit things, I couldn’t control myself. I wanted to kill myself to get away from the noise. This noise had become too much for me to take. This noise was in the same place over and over again. As I lay down on my knees, with tears rushing down my face, my hands holding my head up from falling any lower, thinking of ways to end it, the only thing that stopped me was my dog had come up to me and pushed my hands away from my face with his nose. I looked at him, gripped his lead, run with him to the car and drove off to the countryside, just to get away from the noise. 

Now when the noise is bad, I do that same drive and stay in the same place. That is my way for dealing with the noise. I am lucky, I have savings I can live off for 12 months or so. Other people in similar situations may not have the funds to live off and have to live with the noise, they can’t run away.  

Why am I writing about this? I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I just want to let me know the effects of these concentrated flight paths, a real-life situation. Not something the government has written down on paper. I am more than a number or a statistic.  I believe the government wants to increase the number of concentrated flight paths to increase the number of flights out of Heathrow. My story could become your story.  We should be protected from this noise; like the guy 10 years ago thought too. 

Even if you are a big fan of aviation, you’d be hard-pushed to back the proposed new airport outside Nantes in west France.

The huge numbers which turned up last weekend (9^th and 10^th July) to two days of protest highlighted once again why the plan to build the airport has become the most controversial environmental project in France.

It is causing the Government of Francois Hollande a major headache.  There are over 200 groups across Belgium and France which back the opponents of the airport and which carry out demonstrations in their own areas in support of them.  There were violent scenes a few years ago when the French Police tried to evict some of the thousands of young activists who are camped in Le Zad on the site of the proposed new airport. 

Hollande tried to get round his problem by calling a (non-binding) regional referendum this summer.  People were asked to decide whether they wanted to retain the existing one-runway airport close to the city or back the new two-runway airport over 17 kilometres outside Nantes.  Hundreds of thousands of people voted.  The vote went 55% to 45% in favour of the new airport.

But, far from settling the issue as Holland had hoped, the breakdown of the result has highlighted the pointlessness of the new airport.  The city of Nantes split 50/50 but the communities in the city close to the existing airport plus those under its flight path voted to keep it.  They wanted to keep the jobs it provides and signalled that the flights to the half-empty airport are not a problem.  They vote in favour of the new airport was swung by communities 20 – 50 kilometres north of Nantes, some of whom felt the new airport might provide them with jobs and others who believed it would be easier for them to get to than the exiting airport on the other side of the city.

So this is a major new airport, Nantes International, being proposed on prime farmland not to relieve congestion at the existing airport, nor in response to demands for noise relief for those under existing flight paths, nor even because Nantes is in the middle of nowhere; it is just two hours by train to Paris.

The justification for the new airport seems to be that it will act as a catalyst for economic growth in the west of France.  Plonked in the middle of nowhere, the idea is will serve the surrounding towns, Nantes, Angers and Rennes, each of the many kilometers from the airport.  But there are real doubts whether there are sufficient people in these medium-sized towns to sustain such a project.  Almost certainly, any realistic assessment of the market would rule out the airport.  And the links to these towns from it are unplanned.  There may or may not be a rail link to Nantes.  Rennes and Angers would be served by coaches!  The campaigners claim that the airport has more to do with the egos of the local politicians than theneeds of the local area.  

The Government needs to start building the airport by February or the planning permission it got five years ago falls.  That means it would need to start evicting the environmental activists in Le Zad and the local farmers in the autumn.  It recognizes that, given the scale of the opposition across France and beyond, it will require the army rather than the police to do so.  It may be a battle it cannot win. 

But you don’t need to be an anti-aviation activist to be against this new airport.  

Here are some thoughts on why HACAN is backing respite.

People under the landing flight path in West London have had respite since the 1970s.  Planes landing at Heathrow switch runways at 3pm to give people a half day’s break from the noise.  Our members in West London tell us that this is what makes life bearable for them and, in the past, have taken to the streets to defend it.

For as long as I’ve been involved with HACAN (late 1990s), people under the approach path west of the airport – in places like Windsor – have lobbied for the end of the Cranford Agreement so they could get rid of all-day flying and get the respite enjoyed by West London.  With Cranford coming to an end, that will happen.

For almost as long, people in South East London have been calling for some respite from the noise.  Since 1996 when the point at which many more planes were guided on to their final approach path several miles further east than previously areas like Peckham, Clapham and the Oval rarely get less than 20 planes an hour and can get over 40. (It also applied to places like Henley to the west of the airport).  It is not pure concentration.  There is still an element of dispersal, particularly the further east you go.  But, judging from the emails and phone calls HACAN has got for well over a decade, people don’t like it.  The overwhelming demand is for periods of respite – predicable breaks from the noise – even if that means concentration at other times.  HACAN reflects this view in calling for respite.

I accept that the experience of some people under the departure routes is different.  For many years take-offs were dispersed across the Noise Preferential Route (NPRs) which have been in place since the 1960s.  Over the last decade or so aircraft technology enabled planes to be concentrated more and more on the centre-line of the NPRs.  Again, reflecting the views of our members and supporters, has always opposed this concentration.

Its impact became more apparent to more people during the 2014 trials when certain areas, like Teddington and Ascot, were bombarded with concentrated routes.  Living under them was sheer hell for many people and, even though the trials have ended, the experience has lead people to call for dispersal of the departures.

The other question which must be faced is whether the new technology makes some element of concentration inevitable for both landings and departures.  The technology allows for aircraft to be guided much more precisely.  It would enable concentrated routes to be introduced at every airport.  That would save the airlines money and bring some relatively small reduction in the amount of CO2 emitted by each aircraft.  It would also reduce the number of air traffic controllers that would be required.  And, if coordinated across continents (as is beginning to happen), it would make more effective use of airspace.

Given these advantages to the industry, there is worldwide momentum to it happening.  It will drive the UK Government’s consultation on airspace changes later this year.  As campaigners, we have to ask ourselves:  can we stop this (even if we wanted to)?  In my view, it would require local residents to protest at airports around the world on a scale never before seen.  I am not at all sure that is going to happen.

The alternative is to embrace the new technology and ensure it works in favour of residents as well as the industry.  That has not happened airports in America where brutally concentrated routes were introduced.  Under pressure from residents a lot of the airports are being forced to row back and introduce an element of respite.  But the principle of precision navigation remains; it is simply being accompanied by respite.

Nearly a decade ago HACAN saw the danger of what could happen if pure concentration was introduced.  We therefore started a long, strategic lobbying campaign to forestall it by ensuring the respite became an option engrained in Government policy and put in practice in a meaningful way at Heathrow.  We also knew from the emails we received from members and supporters who were getting dozens of planes an hour that they believed the new technology could work for them if it shared the burden.

And by sharing the burden they did not mean putting it to new areas.  Let me give an example of how it could work in South East London.  Aircraft could go over the Bermondsey, Vauxhall close to the river for a third of the day; the central area of Peckham and Stockwell for another third; and over Brixton Hill to the south for the final third of the day.  All areas currently overflown.  I stress this is just an example.  But, it was feasible, so many residents tell us it would improve their lives immeasurably.  Some tell us that it would be the difference between staying where they are moving house.

Of course all this has to be tested to see if it is practicable.  And also how far apart flight paths need to be to provide meaningful respite for the noise.  That is why we are backing Heathrow’s decision to commission an independent study into what respite could look like.  Heathrow, I believe, want to get future flight paths (and flight paths will change with or without a third runway) to work for both the industry and residents.  That is our position also.

Jock Lowe, the former Concorde pilot, who is heading up the Heathrow Hub bid, has promoting innovative curved approaches to Heathrow.  They have real potential to increase the amount of respite any one community can enjoy.  Some in the industry have cast doubts about the feasibility of all Jock’s ideas but few deny that they will be part of the mix in the airspace change that are to come. 

Of course meaningful respite for departures is going to be difficult.  The existing Noise Preferential Routes are narrow.  Creating new ones would be controversial.  The industry may need to accept an element of dispersal.  We hope the Heathrow-commissioned study – the first of its kind in the world – will throw up feasible options.

Of course, respite is not the whole answer.  Heights of aircraft are important.  Good insulation can help.  But, given the new technology now available to the industry and the inevitability of precision navigation technology I feel that meaningful respite will be essential to protect residents.  Done well, it could improve the current situation for many communities.  A lot of them a banking on it.