Category: BLOG

It is in danger of being forgotten.  Yet the Airspace Policy Consultation contains a raft of proposals which will radically change the way the aviation industry does business.   

All eyes are focused on the parallel third runway consultation.  Understandably so.  Any new runway built anywhere arouses strong emotions.  And at Heathrow the fears are particularly acute.  Already the its aircraft fly over many, many more people than any other airport in Europe.  There are deep concerns about the impact of a quarter of a million more planes a year.

But can I take you back twenty years to the late 1990s to illustrate the depth of the changes being proposed in the Airspace Policy Consultation. They were dark days.  Major changes were made to the way planes flew into Heathrow…..without a word of consultation, far less compensation.  Outdated metrics were the norm.  Respite was limited.  Heathrow sought to infiltrate and undermine community groups. (I met the infiltrators years later!).  The CAA and NATS were remote and unresponsive.  And the Department for Transport sought no real engagement.

The consultation on Airspace Policy is potentially a breakthrough document.  It contains many measures that many organizations have been campaigning for; in the case of HACAN for nigh on two decades.

Perhaps the most dramatic is the proposal to sideline the 57dbLAeq metric as the indicator of the ‘onset of community annoyance’ and replace it with 54dbLAeq and 51dbLAeq metrics.  These are very similar to those recommended by the World Health Organisation.  The consultation document also recommends the use of N60 and N70 metrics.  All this is not perfect- we still need, for example, an additional metric which measures the noise only on the days when the planes are overhead rather than just relying on an annual average – but it is a bold step forward; the biggest in over 20 years.

The consultation also endorses respite as a key option open to airports.  Gone are the days when concentration was the order of the day.  I’ve written many times about the importance of respite to local communities.  Providing it will not always be easy.  In particular, it will be challenging for NATS as it will require air traffic controllers to take a more creative approach to their work but it is now embedded as a key component of Government policy.

The Independent Noise Authority is also central to the new approach Government proposes to take.  The details of the new Authority have yet to be worked out.  Some will argue it should have more teeth. Some of the airports and the airlines will be wary of it.  But it will happen.

For the first time communities will be entitled to be consulted when changes – large or small – are made to airspace and flight paths.  Campaign groups will be pressing hard for the engagement to be meaningful, recognising the devil is in the detail of a proposal that has yet to be fully developed. 

The Airports Commission has faced a lot of criticism from a number of quarters but there can be little doubt it brought a fresh pair of eyes to key aspects of noise policy.  Civil servants within the Department of Transport, with the backing of the aviation minister Lord Ahmad, have built upon that to produce a set of proposals which don’t  deserve to get lost in the publicity surrounding the consultation about a third runway at Heathrow.

The Airspace Policy consultation can be found at:  https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/588186/uk-airspace-policy-a-framework-for-balanced-decisions-on-the-design-and-use-of-airspace-web-version.pdf 

It is half as far from Heathrow as Edinburgh is from Glasgow.  So why is aircraft noise a problem in Brockley?  It is in South East London in the borough of Lewisham, over 20 miles from the airport.  And yet alight at Brockley Station and the dominant noise you will hear is from planes passing overhead.

It is part of Heathrow’s forgotten catchment area which stretches at least 25 miles from the airport.  It takes in Brockley, Leytonstone and Walthamstow to the east and places like Bracknell and Reading to the west.

Perhaps because it is forgotten, it is the area from which HACAN gets most emails.  I think there are two simple reasons for this: one, people who move into these places don’t expect to be neighbours of Heathrow; and, two, the area gets a constant stream of aircraft.  Large parts of West London enjoy a half day’s break from the noise when planes switch runways at 3pm.  This wider catchment area gets no such predicable respite.  It is interesting that a careful look at Heathrow’s complaint statistics for all areas reveal a clear correlation between complaints and lack of respite.

HACAN remains opposed to a third runway particularly because of the impact a quarter of a million extra flights would have on areas closer to Heathrow.  But get off the train at Brockley and or the underground at Leytonstone and the talk will not be of a third runway; but it may well be about aircraft noise or flight paths.

Respite (or controlled dispersal which some communities would prefer) could be introduced at a two-runway Heathrow.  The technology exists to allow precision flying which would enable it to happen.  But Heathrow is reluctant to make major changes to its flight paths until there is certainty about a new runway.  

If a third runway does get the go-ahead, HACAN is urging Heathrow to remember its forgotten catchment area and commit to introducing multiple flight paths, rotated on a regular basis, so that, for at least part of the time when you alight from the train at Brockley or the underground at Leytonstone, you don’t hear a plane in the sky, whatever direction the wind is blowing.

We are suggesting that respite is guaranteed within a 25 mile radius of Heathrow.  Beyond that, where the planes are higher, communities tell us they prefer an element of dispersal.

It would end two decades of constant noise for hundreds of thousands of people.  Heathrow doesn’t need me, a veteran opponent of a third runway, to tell them that this might be one of its key selling points.      

Most of us remember Blind Date with some affection.  Cilla Black’s match-making show attracted big audiences on a Saturday night.  Would the couple hit it off on their holiday together?  Would some of them even settle down with one another?

Heathrow and London City Airport need to go on a date.  There are some signs they are getting together.  I understand they are to meet.  What is needed, though, is a full-blown relationship in order to coordinate the key activities which impact on people living under the flight paths of both airports.

And, now more than ever, is the time to do it.  There will significant changes to flight paths over the next few years.  Some have already been made by London City when the airport concentrated its flight paths last year.  There are signs, though, it may be prepared to look again at these unpopular flight paths.  Heathrow will start consulting on new flight paths later this year..

Many of my friends in West London don’t fully realize the numbers impacted by both airports.  Vast swathes of East London from Tower Hamlets, through Newham, Waltham Forest and Redbridge and beyond are overflown by both Heathrow and London City aircraft.  A lot of South East London is similarly affected.

There are two keys ways in which the airports should work together.

One is in producing cumulative noise contours for the affected areas.  At present each airport draws up its own separate noise contours.  That cannot give a comprehensive or realistic picture of the total noise heard by residents.

The second is in coordinating their work on flight paths with the aim of ensuring that the communities overflown by both airports get meaningful breaks from the noise.

The technology now exists for aircraft to be guided more precisely.  It can be used to create multiple flight paths which, if used on a rotating basis, can give the periods of respite that would improve the quality of life for the people under flight paths.

HACAN remains opposed to a third runway at Heathrow because we fear the impact of quarter of a million extra planes a year on local communities but a firm condition of a new runway, if it is given the go-ahead, should be the requirement that Heathrow works with London City on matters of common concern.

This is not a forced marriage.  Both airports would retain their independence and identity.  But, with the help of other bodies like NATS and the CAA, liaison on noise contours and flight paths is quite possible.  The links the two airports arte beginning to make should be encouraged to develop into the sort of solid working relationship that ‘Our Cilla’ would have surely approved of.   

http://hacan.org.uk/blog/?page_id=516

15/3/17

by John Stewart

Most of us remember Blind Date with some affection.  Cilla Black’s match-making show attracted big audiences on a Saturday night.  Would the couple hit it off on their holiday together?  Would some of them even settle down with one another?

Heathrow and London City Airport need to go on a date.  There are some signs they are getting together.  I understand they are to meet.  What is needed, though, is a full-blown relationship in order to coordinate the key activities which impact on people living under the flight paths of both airports.

And, now more than ever, is the time to do it.  There will significant changes to flight paths over the next few years.  Some have already been made by London City when the airport concentrated its flight paths last year.  There are signs, though, it may be prepared to look again at these unpopular flight paths.  Heathrow will start consulting on new flight paths later this year..

Many of my friends in West London don’t fully realize the numbers impacted by both airports.  Vast swathes of East London from Tower Hamlets, through Newham, Waltham Forest and Redbridge and beyond are overflown by both Heathrow and London City aircraft.  A lot of South East London is similarly affected.

There are two keys ways in which the airports should work together.

One is in producing cumulative noise contours for the affected areas.  At present each airport draws up its own separate noise contours.  That cannot give a comprehensive or realistic picture of the total noise heard by residents.

The second is in coordinating their work on flight paths with the aim of ensuring that the communities overflown by both airports get meaningful breaks from the noise.

The technology now exists for aircraft to be guided more precisely.  It can be used to create multiple flight paths which, if used on a rotating basis, can give the periods of respite that would improve the quality of life for the people under flight paths.

HACAN remains opposed to a third runway at Heathrow because we fear the impact of quarter of a million extra planes a year on local communities but we would suggest that a firm condition of a new runway, if it is given the go-ahead, should be the requirement on Heathrow to work with London City on matters of common concern.

This is not a forced marriage.  Both airports would retain their independence and identity.  But, with the help of other bodies like NATS and the CAA, liaison on noise contours and flight paths is quite possible.  The links the two airports are beginning to make should be encouraged to develop into the sort of solid working relationship that ‘Our Cilla’ would have surely approved of.   

It is just possible that residents under the Heathrow flight paths could enjoy a whole new night-time experience: sleep! 

Currently that sleep can be badly interrupted by planes.  There’s the unscheduled late take-offs after 11.30pm – in fact the last plane is timetabled to leave Heathrow before 11pm.  There are the 16 arrivals between 4.30 and 6am.  And there are the 60 plus planes between 7 and 8am, one of the busiest hours at the airport.

It has been much the same for over a quarter of a century.  The airlines value the night flights but they drive many residents to distraction.  Government has realized how toxic an issue it is and so has kept the regime largely unchanged for the last 25 years.

But now an opportunity to change things could arise.  The third runway could be the catalyst.  HACAN continues to oppose a third runway primarily because we are concerned about the impact of a quarter of a million more planes using Heathrow each year.  But, if a third runway is to go ahead, the opportunity must not be lost to prize open the stalemate on night flights than has lasted for over quarter of a century.

The Airports Commission argued in its final report that a third runway would provide the capacity for the 16 flights which come in before 6am flights to land just after six, thus remaining attractive to the majority of passengers who use them.  The airlines will resist but, in return for getting a whole new runway, is it really too much to ask that they don’t start operating until 6am?  Sir Howard Davies certainly felt it was not.

It will be more difficult to relocate the 60 plus planes which currently use the airport between 6 and 7am but this is the time to make a creative assessment to see what can be done about them.  How essential it is that all these planes arrive and depart during this hour?  Does the extra capacity provided by the third runway allow at least some of them to be shunted post 7am?  If it would do, it would open the way to ensure people only get flights before 7am one week in three (wind permitting) as only one runway would be used for landings and one for departures during those hours.

Heathrow is also getting serious about late night departures.  They have been coming down in recent years and Heathrow’s recent sustainability plan, Heathrow 2, includes specific targets to reduce them further (genuine emergencies and late running due to really bad weather would be excluded).

So, what could an overall package look like to allow residents to sleep at night?

• For two weeks out of three, no flights from 11pm until 7am

• On the third week, no flights from 11pm until 6am

Compare the current situation:  often departures after 11pm and sometimes into the early hours; 16 planes between 4.30am and 6am (at least every other week) and over 60 planes between 6am and 7am.

If a third runway does go ahead, this change is worth fighting for.

The lack of information about where the new flights will be is emerging as a key criticism of the Department for Transport’s current consultation into the third runway at Heathrow.  Commonsense would suggest that flight paths should be an integral part of any consultation on any new runway.  After all, most people are pretty agnostic about a new runway.  They only get interested if they hear that the runway will mean flights over their homes.  Yet read the Department’s consultation document or go to one of its public exhibitions and information about flight paths is missing.

I’m not sure this is a deliberate plot to minimize the opposition to a third runway by withholding flight path information from people.  It is more the result of very bad timing.  The third runway consultation is being run in parallel to a national consultation on air space policy.  The latter is being driven by a worldwide plan to modernize and make more efficient use of airspace.  This would save the airlines money, time and fuel as well as cutting their climate change emissions.  Also, it would allow airports to operate more flexibly and effectively. The consultation is asking for views on the principles which should inform airspace policy – for example, should flight paths be concentrated or dispersed; how much importance do people attach to respite; what would meaningful respite would look like.  

And therein lies the problem for the Heathrow consultation.  Until these key principles have been decided neither the Department for Transport (DfT) nor Heathrow can know for sure where the new flight paths for a third runway will be.  Indeed, they cannot predict what will happen to flight paths even if Heathrow remains a two-runway airport.

So why, you might reasonably ask, did the DfT not consult on airspace policy well before the consultation on the third runway?  The civil servants were keen to do so.  Ministers, maybe understandably but unfortunately, have spent the last two years so focused on the toxic question of where a new runway should go that they allowed a backlog of other matters to build up.

Heathrow Airport itself is planning to start consulting in the autumn on the principles behind any flight path changes and to involve local communities in the process.  And in 2018 flight paths will form part of its detailed plans for a third runway if Parliament approves the new runway.

Through no fault of Heathrow this will be the first time that many, many people will be aware that a third runway flight path could affect them.  I suspect there will be real anger.  The fact is Ministers, by refusing to sort out flight path policy well in advance of the consultation, have caused an unholy mess.

The DfT appointed the former judge, Sir Jeremy Sullivan, to ensure the third runway consultation was fair and reasonable.  I trust he will have a few choice words for ministers on the absence of flight paths when he submits his report on the process in early summer.

2016 taught us the folly of making predictions.  If anybody had put a bet on Leicester City winning the League, the UK leaving Europe, Donald Trump becoming the US President and a Briton ending up as the number one tennis player in the world, they would be almost rich enough to pay for Heathrow’s advertising blitz that helped secure it the third runway decision!

So no predictions.  Just a few thoughts about what 2017 might have in store for a third runway at Heathrow.

In January the Government is expected to publish its National Policy Statement (NPS) on Airports.  It will go out to public consultation for several months.  Essentially, it will only be about the third runway.  In the summer Parliament’s Transport Select Committee will look at the NPS and Parliament will vote on it late this year or early 2018.

Even if Parliament gives it the go-ahead, that is not the end of the matter.  In 2018/19 Heathrow will need to draw up detailed plans for the new runway, including flight paths, to go out to public consultation before being presented to a planning inquiry. 

Despite the Government’s 2016 decision in its favour, I’m not at all certain the third runway is in the bag for Heathrow.  It has climbed a lot of hurdles.  The advertising jibe is probably a little unfair because behind the scenes it has put in a huge amount of work on its third runway proposals.

But, speaking with journalists, politicians and many residents, there is the belief that a lot of hurdles still need to be cleared.  The cost of the road and rail infrastructure required for a new runway has still not been nailed down.  We can expect campaigners and politicians to continue to ask hard questions about it.

There is also the fact that the Government has reduced its estimate of the benefits of a third runway to £61bn (over a 60 year period) from the Airports Commission’s figure of £211bn.  Heathrow’s promises to the regions of jobs and prosperity were based on the higher figure.  Where does that leave those promises now?

There remains significant local opposition to a new runway.  The lobby group Back Heathrow is right to point out that polls taken in the seven boroughs closest to the airport show over 40% in favour with around a third against.  Yet the figures haven’t changed over ten years: Heathrow’s polling in 2007 showed much the same result.

What Back Heathrow has done – and has done well – is highlight, and, to some extent, give a voice to those who want a new runway.  What we haven’t seen is any real increase in the numbers backing a third runway.

The opposition to it remains significant, simply because a lot of people have a lot to lose if a third runway goes ahead – particularly those living in West London and Berkshire:

• the Heathrow villagers who are determined to preserve their homes and community

• the residents who know they will be under a busy flight path for the first time

• the West Londoners who fear they will lose part of their half day’s break from the noise

Ironically, one of the constituencies with most to lose would be the Prime Minister’s own: Maidenhead. 

In order to mitigate the impact of a third runway, Heathrow has agreed to the conditions set out by the Government and originally proposed by the Airports Commission.  They include an extension of the night period when no scheduled flights will be permitted.  I’m certain that during the consultation on the third runway, due to start in late January, campaigners and local authorities will seek to strengthen these conditions should a new runway ever be built.

What is hampering Heathrow – and it is particularly obvious around the conditions – is a lack of trust in what it says.  It comes from a terrible legacy of broken promises which Heathrow now openly acknowledges.  My own view – which I’m very aware is not shared by all my fellow campaigners – is that Heathrow has learnt from the past.  Heathrow realized that it had to learn the hard lessons.  If it failed to do so, any further growth would be all but impossible.  

My feeling is that under John Holland-Kaye Heathrow has become a progressive company.  That’s not saying I’m flying any flag for a third runway.  It is saying I believe it is worth putting time and effort into getting strengthened conditions in the event of a third runway going ahead.

Heathrow faces opposition from two other important quarters. 

The local authorities, along with Greenpeace, will be mounting a legal challenge to the Government’s decision to favour a third runway.  

And the direct action movement will not go away.  A new generation of direct action protesters is emerging.  They are part of a wider climate change movement which also uses civil disobedience to oppose things like fracking.  I’ve taken a vow not to make predictions in this blog but I’d be surprised if Heathrow wasn’t facing a year-long campaign of direct action in 2017.

I’m glad I’m not making predictions.  All I can say is that by the end of the year we are likely to be in a better position to know which hurdles will still be standing.

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.     

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!