We have published this letter to us in the form of a blog as it highlights a key point that has been made to us in an increasing number of emails and letters; that, in focusing on opposition to a third runway in our campaigning, we are in danger of neglecting measures, such as respite, needed to assist people currently suffering from the noise.

Dear HACAN,

We like what you do.   We don’t like the sound of a third runway.  But we are worried that the focus you are putting on a the third runway in your campaigning is obscuring the fact something urgently needs to be done for people like us who are bombarded right now by the noise of planes landing at Heathrow.

To be brutally honest, a third runway is not our main concern.  It is over a decade away. And, to be utterly frank, if it meant an improvement to our current situation we would welcome it.

We all live in South East London. We met at the Oval watching cricket and got chatting not so much about the number of runs on the scoreboard but more about the number of planes going overhead.  Sometimes there were over 40 an hour.  We all live within about a two mile radius of the Oval.

Some of us have moved in over the last few years; others have been in the area for over 30 years. None of us thought to ask about planes when we moved in. We are almost 20 miles from Heathrow.

Those of us who have been here for many years began to see a change in the late 1990s. We have since learnt from the useful briefing sheets you have produced that it was around that time that more planes starting joining their final approach path in SE London rather than SW London as they had done previously.  We became the new neighbours of Heathrow.

We note from posts on twitter and facebook we are not alone in having our lives ruined by this constant noise. Some of our neighbours have moved away to escape it. But many people can’t, particularly if you a renting in one of the many council estates in the area.

We appreciate the huge efforts HACAN has made to put respite on the agenda. That is what we want: a predicable period of relief from the noise where we know we can enjoy our homes, parks and gardens without the fear of the next plane roaring overhead.  Where we can watch the cricket to nothing more than the sound of the bat and ball and the roar of the crowd.

Please make this a central part of your campaigning.  What about ‘rallies for respite’?  We’d be there.  Even worth missing the cricket for!

You may begin to see why the campaigning against the third runway doesn’t resonate with us.  We understand why it is so important to people who will lose their homes and don’t want the compensation they would get. We can see why it is so critical to those people who would be under a new flight path for the first time.  We ‘get’ that some people oppose it on climate change grounds.

But, though it may be heretical to say so, if a third runway could bring us a better deal than we have now, we’d go for it. And we don’t believe that is necessarily fantasy. We have followed what the ex-Concorde pilot Jock Lowe has been saying about curved flight paths. They could be used in a way that allowed flight paths to be shared much more fairly.

Are we being NIMBY? We hope not and we don’t think we are. HACAN, you have written eloquently about the unfairness of ‘noise ghettos’ in the past. You may even have coined the phrase! All we are saying is that noise ghettos shouldn’t exist and that we currently live in one.

So, please HACAN, as well as your Rallies against the Runway, let’s have a Rally for Respite. It’s only cricket after all!

John Stewart, HACAN chair responds:

In the autumn the Government will be consulting on the principles that should inform any airspace changes (nationally).  It is within this framework that Heathrow will make changes to its flight paths, whether it operates as a two-runway or three runway airport.  Heathrow has commissioned a major independent study to find out what meaningful respite will look like.  We have backed the study and, through the Heathrow Noise Forum, were closely involved in the preparatory work for the study.  It is the first of its kind in the world and will be published next year.

Whatever the decision on the third runway, flight paths will be a major focus of our work over the next period.  This will include campaigning for respite as well as pressing for the best possible operational practices such as steeper ascent and descent pathways.  Let’s rally together for respite! 

Fair Flight Paths

The UK will have it’s airspace modernised over the next few years, and this will mean, what the industry has described as, ‘once in a lifetime’ changes.

Naturally, with so much at stake, communities up and down the country (particularly the already overflown) are concerned to ensure that the process delivers fair outcomes, and fair flight paths. This is a reasonable expectation.

The CAA and NATs are leading principally on the design of the new flight paths and essentially have peoples’ lives in their hands. Designed well, flight paths can be a revelation; designed badly they can be a death sentence.

The current principle for flight path design is that of ‘least people’. Although this may be efficient, it is hardly fair (fair is about treating people equally without favouritism or discrimination). It is also worthwhile remembering that most systems require scope for adjustment. Ruthlessly pursuing the ‘least people’ principle can be seen in:

• Centreline concentration – this has been raised time, and time again by communities who argue for greater dispersal (distribution) of noise. Not only is this feasible, it is fair. It is even fairer to people who may also have to endure concentrated arrivals also for part of the time. 

• Over use of concentrated flight paths to hammer the same people again, and again. While this may be very efficient, again, it isn’t very fair.

There are significant perceived and known health risks associated with such an approach, such as cardio vascular disease/hypertension, and premature death, as well as stress, anxiety, depression, including severe depression (with increased suicide risk potential). 

Other concerns around concentrated flight paths concern equalisation. All flight paths are not equal, and while they may look similar in terms of a line on a chart they may have completely different impacts. To be ‘equalised’, and fairer, we need to understand that we are comparing like with like (or as near as). So the volume of traffic, intensity, aircraft mix (there are ‘tiddler’ aircraft and monsters), altitude and proximity to properties really tell the story. 

Noise averages, paradoxically, as in noise contours appear to be insufficiently sensitive to identify what could be a micro noise ghetto or hotspot. Here several flight paths may converge (perhaps as many as three) delivering perhaps 3 times the noise as any of the individual ones. Is this fair? And if it isn’t how do we equalise it, or at least try to make it a little fairer? Arguing about it, if you are a minnow in a pond of bigger fish is, on its own, unlikely to resolve it, and overtime it is likely to get worse as even more traffic is dispersed over your head. 

While the ‘least people’ principle can stick, it should be moderated by a ‘least harm’ test. Therefore if challenged, as in the hypothetical case of 3 flight paths into one, a ‘least harm’ test could be applied, enabling the minor rejigging of the flight paths at that point. This might see a neighbour taking a part of the strain. The net effect might then be 710 people affected instead of 709/8 (whatever) but the lives saved for the otherwise overdone original target. This is the importance of flexibility, challenge, integrity, and (pragmatic) adjustment in a system.

So, while we all probably want, and need, fair flight paths I truly worry how this is going to be fairly delivered in practice. 

I’ve been checking the emails HACAN has received over the last two months.  There is one striking feature.  Over 95% of those which contain a complaint are from people living in areas that get aircraft noise all day long.  

Some are about departure routes that have become more concentrated.  Some are about arrivals over places that get no respite.  

Astonishingly, not one has come from the parts of West London which enjoy a half day’s break from the noise when landing aircraft switch runways at 3pm each day.

The message couldn’t be clearer.  It is a period of relief from the noise which people value above all else.  Heathrow has commissioned a major study to assess what meaningful respite might look like and how it could be introduced.  It is the first airport in the world to undertake such a wide-ranging study.  It is due to be published next spring.

The plans for a new runway at Heathrow – if it ever given the go-ahead – all include provision for respite.  The most creative come from Heathrow Hub (who want to extend the existing northern runway).  The brains behind the scheme is the highly respected former Concorde pilot Jock Lowe.  He argues that is feasible and safe for planes to join their final approach path as close as three miles from the airport, thus allowing for multiple respite routes.   

Respite is also expected to feature in the Government’s proposals when it consults on airspace changes later this year.

But the clear message from the HACAN emails is that people are not to wait for some relief from the noise; they want it the day before yesterday.  In the hot summer weather many of those living in the noise ghettos are in despair.  They are angry and want change.  They may differ a little on how they define ‘respite’ – some prefer the words relief, dispersal, sharing it around – but they are all united in one call: ‘Give us a Break from the Noise’.

At last we are seeing movement on introducing flight paths which can benefit residents.

Last week Gatwick Airport accepted the recommendations of an independent report which outlined a new approach to flight paths.  http://www.gatwickairport.com/globalassets/publicationfiles/business_and_community/all_public_publications/2016/gatwick—response-document-action-plan-final-31mar2016.pdf 

These included looking to introduce multi-path approaches to share out the noise burden.  The devil of this scheme will lie in the detail and there will need to be changes from the routes suggested to avoid some areas getting both arrivals and departures.  But the change in the airport’s attitude from just from a couple of years ago has been seismic.  It had changed routes with little or no regard for residents.  This provoked a backlash from some very well-healed areas.  The result has been that the airport has had to rethink it approach.

The Gatwick decision comes hard on the heels of a consultation from the Civil Aviation Authority suggesting new ways in which it oversees changes to flight paths which are more transparent and involve local people more closely.

https://consultations.caa.co.uk/policy-development/proposals-for-revised-airspace-change-process/consult_view

HACAN has broadly welcomed the proposals in the consultation:  file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/John%20Stewart/My%20Documents/Downloads/my_response%20(1).pdf 

The CAA had been heavily criticized, including in a report it had commissioned from the consultants Helios, over the way it had been overseeing proposals for changes to flight paths.  For example, its decision to allow London City Airport to concentrate its flight paths has provoked outrage from residents, MPs and local authorities in the areas affected.  Our sister organisation, HACAN East, will be seeking to meet with the CAA over the decision.

Many of the flight path changes are being driven by the industry’s desire to use the new computer technology now available to fly planes on more precise routes.  That can save airlines fuel, increase the capacity of the airspace, improve the resilience of busy airports and make some savings on climate change emissions.

Although concentration of flight paths is not an inevitable result of the use of this new precision technology, it has been the outcome in many places, most notably in America where communities and city authorities have been up in arms.  Quite rightly so, as noise ghettos have been created.

Some years ago foresaw this danger of noise ghettos and has engaged with Heathrow Airport to come up with flight path proposals which not only bring benefits not only to the industry but also to residents.  We identified the provision of respite as the key, i.e. the sharing around of concentrated routes in order to give people predicable periods of relief from the noise. (The proposed routes at Gatwick are, I believe, slightly different: the intention is to use the multiple routes not to give periods of predicable relief but to ensure no community get all the planes but the aim is the same: to avoid the creation of noise ghettos).

Heathrow Airport has invested a considerable amount of effort in preparing for respite.  It has commissioned a major study looking at how meaningful respite can be introduced in and around Heathrow.

The prize for hundreds of thousands of residents could be huge.  It is not just that noise ghettos are likely to be avoided but that the current situation will be improved.  Years before we had heard of precision technology, HACAN had been pressing for just this sharing out of concentrating routes because of the daily nightmare people were experiencing.

This is not something many of the people living under the landing flight path in West London truly understand as most of them already get relief when planes coming in to the airport switch runways at 3pm.  

But this relief only applies to those in the boroughs closest to the airport.    In a typical week, by far the largest number of emails and phone calls I get come from people outside these areas.  Some are from people under departure routes (which I’ll deal with shortly); the majority from people in South East and East London driven crazy by what they see as constant noise; sometimes, according to surveys carried out by HACAN, over 40 planes an hour.

These people don’t fear new flight paths.  They can’t wait for them to be introduced.  They want the blessed relief that predicable flight paths, switched on a regular basis, would bring.  I am not exaggerating when I say that people ring me on hoping that they can hold out until the respite comes in.  Hoping they don’t have to move away.  There are even people who have rented out their homes for a few years, intending to move back in when relief and respite becomes a reality.

The emotions and the passions, the fears and the hopes are intense.  It is the same for many under the departure routes.  The “ghettoisation” of departures has been intensified as aircraft have increasingly all followed the centre-line of the Noise Preferential Routes (the 3 kilometre wide band which aircraft need to use until they reach 4,000 ft).

It will be harder to introduce meaningful respite within the Noise Preferential Routes and some sharing around within the NPR might be more appropriate.

Heathrow is under a lot of pressure to announce what flight paths will look like if a third runway is built.  I suspect it does not know where they will all be.  It is unlikely to be in a position to know until it completes its respite study (expected to be spring 2017).  By then, it will be clearer whether it is planning flight paths for a two or three runway airport.  A third runway clearly brings all sorts of other issues but, even with a third runway in place, Heathrow claims it could provide 95% of people with respite 50% of the time.  That’s much more than it does today.  For most people that’s not an argument for a third runway but what it does reveal is the possibilities for respite that are opening up.