Category: BLOG

Some good may yet come out of last week’s revelation that NATS (National Air Traffic Control) failed to tell Heathrow Airport about critical flight path changes.  Residents in the affected areas – Ascot, Binfield, Virginia Water and Bracknell – had consistently complained about the increase in flights over their areas.  Heathrow Airport admitted that trials had taken in 2014 but argued that now that the trials have finished, things have returned to normal.  However Heathrow issued a statement – COMPTON FINAL STATEMENT 17 March 14 – last week that it had not been told about an earlier 2014 change made by NATS which is still in place.  It means that planes are flying in more concentrated flight paths over the affected areas.

In a strong statement Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said:  “I am very concerned that NATS made this change without informing the airport or affected communities about its potential impact, particularly given its effects on some of the same areas to the west of the airport that were affected by the airspace trials we ran last year. Because of the assurances we received, we in turn told residents in good faith that no changes had occurred.  That is unacceptable and I unequivocally apologise to local residents. At my request, the Chief Executive of NATS has agreed to urgently review his company’s processes to ensure that NATS shares this information with the airport to prevent this happening again in the future.”

Heathrow has asked NATS to revert to the pre-2014 flight paths but, so far, NATS has not done so.

Some scepticism has been expressed that Heathrow did not know about the NATS’ changes but retired flight path controllers have told HACAN that there is no reason why NATS should have told the Airport or even their own spokespeople.  As far as controllers were concerned, they were simply making an alteration to the route departing aircraft took above 8,000 feet in order to ensure more space between planes from Heathrow and those using Stansted and Luton.

This blunder can work in everybody’s favour if it acts as a wake-up call to NATS.  NATS technical staff have a superb record in ensuring flying is safe but the culture must change.  NATS needs to make sure all its staff are aware of the impact the changes they make will have on people on the ground and of the need to communicate any changes clearly to residents and airports.

But there is a more fundamental challenge for NATS.  It needs to come to accept that it cannot proceed with some of the changes it would like to make if they are going to have a noticeably adverse effect on local communities.  (The only exception to this would be if safety was seriously compromised).  This will require a deep change in the NATS mind-set.

A new approach from NATS is particularly important at a time when significant changes will be introduced to airspace and flight paths to allow for the effective use of new technology.  At Heathrow, the airport, local authorities, HACAN and others are working together to try to ensure the best all-round outcome.  There will need to be give and take from all bodies.  That must include NATS.

The most immediate gesture of good faith would be for NATS to reverse flight path changes they made in June 2014…..and to tell us all about it!

Night flights before 6am should come to an end if a third runway is ever built.  That is the view of Jock Lowe, the former Concorde pilot who heads up Heathrow Hub, the independent consortium proposing a new runway.  And he is right.

Night flights shouldn’t be allowed anyway.  And they are not needed.  A seminal report from the European Commission published in 2005 concluded:

“the argument for night flights seems to be basically commercially rather than operationally driven.”  European Commission Report 2005

But it argued that the airlines are able to avoid night flights (using any major airport in the world) by adjusting their schedules.

“If the same restrictions apply to all the competing airlines flying the European long-haul routes, they do seem to be able to adapt their schedules and get over slot availability, congestion, and connections, and fly by day.”  

Night flights are operated largely for the convenience of the airlines.  They will not ditch them voluntarily.  It requires Government action to force them to do so.

HACAN has long argued that night flights at Heathrow should become a thing of the past.  Well over half a million people living in and around London are overflown by night flights – more than any other city in Europe.  They should go in 2017 when the Government next considers the night regime.

But any plan for a 3^rd runway should assume no flights before 6am.  It would be perfectly possible to accommodate the 16 flights that currently land pre-6am on the extra capacity provided by a new runway.

Aviation is an acquisitive industry.  It wants but is rarely prepared to give.  It wants a third runway at Heathrow above all else.  So what is it going to give residents?  No even a decent night’s sleep?

NATS airspace plans:  ‘probably the most important and far-reaching aviation announcement of the year’

Today’s announcement by National Air Traffic Control (NATS) that it proposes to reconfigure airspace could be more significant that any plans for a new runway.  ‘Airspace’ and ‘flight paths’ sound like a technical turn-off but, in my view, this is the most important and far-reaching aviation announcement of the year.

(http://www.wscountytimes.co.uk/news/local/could-new-respite-routes-reduce-noise-for-people-living-under-gatwick-flight-paths-1-5584748#.Ul1Ccxa6zS4.twitter …)

Why?  It could be airport expansion by the backdoor in a big way as it might result in a 20% increase in the number of flights which can use existing runways.  And, if done badly, could generate the sort of huge popular protests that have taken place in Frankfurt since flight paths were changed to accommodate the new runway in 2011. 

Let me explain.  NAT’s proposals are part of the Single European Sky Agreement, known as SESAR.  SESAR aims to create much more coordination between the air traffic control systems of individual European countries.  These would increase efficiency and potentially cut CO2 emissions.

So far, so good.  But, according to the NATS report published today on the Gatwick airspace, it would enable a plane to land at Gatwick every minute.  Currently the gap between aircraft needs to be 90 seconds.  Without the hint of a second runway, this could increase capacity of the airport by around 20%.

But there is more.  NATS has said it will be revising all the take-off and landing routes.  That could mean some areas become free of planes while others are under a flight path for the first time.  And that’s where the protest will start.  People are more disturbed by planes when they’ve never had them before.  And they feel cheated because they can reasonably argue they never expected to be under a flight path.  It is this situation which has seen up to 5,000 people occupy the terminal in Frankfurt every Monday night ever since the fourth runway opened in 2011.

Potential noise ghettos

However, it could even be worse than this.  Increasingly, NATS has the computer technology to guide planes much more precisely.  This is why they are talking about having stacks in the sea and then guiding aircraft to the airport in one or two continuous paths.  That will relieve many people who currently get aircraft but it will be turning the new areas into noise ghettos.

Respite periods

NATS is aware of this and is talking about respite periods by varying the approach paths to airports (and the take-off routes).  That would be welcome but it still potentially leaves many communities experiencing a lot of aircraft noise for the first time.

NATS is also talking about quieter planes and steeper descent paths.  All very but I’m not sure they will be enough to stem the torrent of protest new flight paths will unleash.

A few years back NATS were badly hurt when they tried to vary flight paths around Luton and Stansted.  They backed off.  This time they are trying to still the protests about consulting on the concept of airspace changes first, long before publishing the new flight paths.

They are starting with Gatwick and London City but hope to cover the whole county by 2020, including Heathrow where, according to the European Commission, over 725,000 people leave under the flight paths.

The explosion waiting to happen could relegate the fight over a new runway in London and the South East.  And, nationwide, the streamlined system could significantly increase the number of planes using our airports.

The EU is giving NATS little choice but to try and introduce these changes.  But they are playing with very high stakes.  Get it wrong and they could be an explosion of protest across the UK.       

Chicago agrees to reprieve on dismantling O’Hare’s diagonal runways http://trib.in/1FQp3tZ 

City Of Phoenix Has Filed Suit Against The FAA Over Aircraft Noise on new, concentrated flight paths – http://ow.ly/NK9H9 

People are becoming more disturbed by noise because the noise climate has become worse; not because they are less tolerant of noise

Blog by John Stewart

The official National Noise Attitude Survey (1), recently published by the Government, showed that more people were disturbed by noise than ten years ago. Those disturbed by neighbour noise was up from 9% to 11%; aircraft noise up from 1 million to 2 million people; only road noise – at 8% of the population – remained constant.  

A number of people have jumped to the conclusion that this is because we are becoming less tolerant of noise.  I’m not sure there is evidence to back that up.  

The evidence we have points the other way:  as a nation we are becoming more tolerant of noise; the fact the more people say they more disturbed is simply a reflection of how noisy the country has become.

When I was researching my book Why Noise Matters (Earthscan 2011) all the evidence I found suggested that we are able to live with levels of noise we simply would have not tolerated a generation or two ago.

Of course noise has always been with us. We only have to read accounts of the noise in ancient Rome or on the streets of medieval Europe to understand the problems it presented.  But the type of noise was different to that so common in the modern world.  It was described as ‘the organic sounds created by humans and animals at work and at play.’(The Soundscape of Modernity, Thompson 2004)

Today we are faced with ‘machine age’ noises: cars, planes, trains, stereo systems, musak, iPods etc.  I found evidence that in countries where the consumer society has become embedded ‘a growing number of people not only accept noise but see it as something positive because it is associated with the consumer goods they value.’

But many have not just embraced the constant noise of consumerism, but also learnt to love the loudness of the noise.  The noise in modern clubs, cinemas, restaurants and even our home stereo systems is of a level unimaginable 40 years ago.  Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter argue that ‘when a culture accepts loudness as being a legitimate right in recreational sound venues, that acceptance tends to legitimize all forms of noise pollution.’ 

They go on:  ‘As a culture with advancing sonic tools and amplification, there are increasing opportunities to be immersed in destructively loud sound fields.  We believe that acceptance of loudness in entertainment then carries over to a tolerance of disruptive noise from airplanes, jackhammers, powered garden equipment, and so on.  Loudness becomes the cultural norm.’  (The unexamined rewards for excessive loudness, Blesser and Salter, 2008)

I would suggest that this is borne out by people’s acceptance of loud noise in daily life: music in shops and restaurants; announcements on the Underground and at railway stations; iPods stuck to our ears.

Of course there are people for whom this cacophony of noise is well-nigh unbearable, but for much of the nation it is accepted – and perhaps even enjoyed – as part of life.  And yet more people say they are disturbed by road, aircraft and neighbour noise than ever before.  It can only mean that the noise from these sources is becoming worse.

(1). The Government aims to publish the National Noise Attitude Survey every ten years.  Previous surveys were published in 1991 and 2001.  This survey is dated December 2014 but has recently been released by DEFRA.  The research for it was carried out in 2012:  file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/John%20Stewart/My%20Documents/Downloads/12378_SummaryReportV1.0%20(1).pdf

How much support is there for a third runway at Heathrow?

So, how much support is there for a third runway?  Heathrow – understandably from their perspective – made a big deal of this week’s Populus Poll which saw support edge up to just over 50% – http://mediacentre.heathrowairport.com/Press-releases/New-Poll-Growing-local-support-for-Heathrow-expansion-ab2.aspx .  They have now crafted huge adverts around the findings.

The reliability of the Populus polls has been questioned because of the way in which they have been conducted – http://hacan.org.uk/blog/?p=316  – but the key stat may be found in a 2007 Populus Poll.  The findings then were very similar to the results of this week’s poll.  It showed 50% in favour and 30% against – http://hacan.org.uk/blog/?p=281  

Nothing much has changed since 2007 and critically around a third of people questioned remain opposed to Heathrow expansion.  Across London and the South East that adds up to over one million people.  And that’s a number to worry any Government.  It is a stubborn block of opposition that refuses to be swayed by Heathrow’s advertising blitz or Back Heathrow’s expensive leaflet drops.

I think, though, what Heathrow has achieved is bringing into sharper focus the support there is for a third runway.  That support – some of it active; a lot of it passive – has always been there.  It was simply not part of the narrative 10 years ago.

However, I suspect, when the next Government comes to consider the findings of the Airports Commission, it will be more interested in assessing the level of opposition when coming to a view about the political deliverability of a third runway that how much support it has.  It is the way of politics.

It is likely that a third of residents will continue to oppose expansion, some of them vehemently.  As will the array of environmental groups.  They were an important part of the coalition which saw off the proposals for a third runway last time round.  And Heathrow has not sought to engage with them, nor Back Heathrow to influence them.

Most Of the green groups have gone quiet since the third runway was dropped in 2010.  Climate Change is their issue.  They are not really interested in noise or flight paths.  My soundings suggest they will be back if a new runway is given an amber light after the Election.

Heathrow understands there is little they can offer the environmental groups, so have not spent resources trying to influence them.  Heathrow has concentrated its energies in try to offer residents and local authorities a better deal in terms of noise mitigation measures, jobs and compensation.  But, so far, it has not shifted the million plus people in London and the South East who remain firmly opposed to expansion.  

Dear Sir Howard,

As a seasoned campaigner, I find it all somewhat ironic.  You will have noticed from the number of pro-forma letters your Commission has been receiving that Heathrow Airport and Back Heathrow have strained every sinew of their advertising budget to try to persuade as many people as possible to email or write to the Commission that they want a third runway at Heathrow.

As you know, that is not the issue the Commission has been seeking to address in its current consultation.  It has been asking a series of fairly technical questions on whether it has accurately assessed the pros ands cons of the three options it has shortlisted for a new runway:  Gatwick; Heathrow Hub; and Heathrow Airport’s own proposal.

What it is not assessing is the level of support for each option.  Quite rightly, the Commission sees that as the role of the next Government when it considers the Commission’s recommendations after the forthcoming General Election.

The irony is that, as a rule, it is campaign groups which use – and indeed sometimes abuse – this sort of consultation as a hook to bombard the authorities with objections.  Usually the airports are content to sit back and watch, with wry amusement, their opponents running around ragged, content in the knowledge that it is the technical arguments that count.

Not this time.  The roles have been reversed.  While most of the campaign groups have stuck to making the arguments, Heathrow, together with its sidekick Back Heathrow, have engaged in an orgy of activity.  Passengers have been invited to pop letters of support into special post boxes which you may have seen dotted around the terminals.  Airport staff, resplendent in their uniforms, have been queuing up to sign the pro-forma letters (having doubtless carefully considered every word of your weighty report in their tea-break).  And Back Heathrow, slick campaigners that they are, have used their website to make it as easy as possible for their supporters to send the Commission emails and letters supporting expansion.

 I think the Commission can expect tens of thousands of standard letters and emails supporting Heathrow expansion.  I don’t know if Heathrow has set itself a target but I suspect it would be disappointed if you received less than 60,000 – the number of supporters I believe Back Heathrow now claims to have.  They may even be aiming for 70,000, the number who objected to the third runway in 2009.

You will get some responses from HACAN members and supporters but we have deliberately not set out to generate a mass of pro-forma letters and emails.  We simply think they are a side-show to the serious work your Commission is undertaking.

Thank-you for taking the time to read this letter,

John Stewart

Chair HACAN

“Well, you knew Heathrow was there, so why did you move under the flight path?”  It is one of the most common responses to residents’ complaints about noise.

And it is not always said in a sneering, aggressive way, although that can and does happen.  Often the questioner is simply drawing a very logical conclusion.  Most of us moved into our homes after Heathrow was opened in 1946; we knew we were under a flight path; haven’t we, therefore, really just got ourselves to blame.

As you might expect, I’m going to argue it is nothing like as straightforward as that. But first to acknowledge the truth in what is being said.  Over the past 20 years a lot of homes under the flight paths have changed hands.  And some, in the buoyant London market, for figures in excess of a million pounds.  Most of these buyers knew about the flight paths, though some would not have realized how disturbing the planes actually can be until after they moved in.  But HACAN gets a negligible number of complaints from people who have moved under the flight paths in the boroughs closest to Heathrow in recent years.

Now let me take you to Walthamstow.  It could be Leystonstone, Stratford, Catford, Peckham, Brixton or Vauxhall.  Ask yourself, if you were moving into one of these areas, would you ask the estate agents about aircraft noise.  And yet, over the last 20 years, it has become a real problem in these places.

A study HACAN commissioned from the independent noise consultants Bureau Veritas in 2008 found that in places 20 kilometres from Heathrow “aircraft noise dominated the local environment.”  It said there was “an almost constant background of aircraft noise” in Kennington Park, close to the Oval Cricket Ground, well over 15 kilometres from the airport.  And the study concluded:  “The relatively high levels of aircraft noise that do occur at some distance from the airport are certainly enough to be noticed by those living in those areas and in certain circumstances to cause some disturbance and intrusion.”

The big change occurred in the mid-1990s when a change in operational practices meant that aircraft joined their final approach path much further from the airport.  Instead of joining over West London, they were expected to join over SE London.  As one resident wrote, “We didn’t move to the flight path, the flight path moved to us.”  It can make people still living in those areas very angry to be told they were aware that they were under the flight path to a major international airport when they moved in.  Interestingly, the highest number of complaints HACAN continues to get are from areas some distance from the airport.

There is, though, another reason why it is too easy to say that people knew about the airport when the moved in and therefore, it is implied, should shut up about the noise.  Not everybody has a choice about where they live.  People will move to where jobs are and, particularly if you are on a low-income, will want to live as near work as possible in order to reduce travel costs.  Additionally, the many people in social housing have limited choices about location.

In conclusion, think twice before you say: “You knew Heathrow was there, so why did you move under the flight path?”  It can make a lot of people angry and frustrated because they know that, in their case, it is simply not true.  Or that they had no choice.   

Five years ago in the week between Christmas and the New Year I wrote Victory Against All Odds – the story of how the campaign to stop a third runway at Heathrow was won.  It was five months before the 2010 General Election but I was banking on the fact that Labour, which was promoting the new runway would lose, and that David Cameron  – “No ifs; not buts; there will be No Third Runway” – would become Prime Minister.

Five years on the third runway is back on the agenda.  For a short period when Justine Greening was Transport Secretary, Theresa Villiers was responsible for aviation and Maria Eagle shadowed transport for Labour, it looked as if we might have killed the third runway.

However, I would argue it has been far from a wasted five years and, in one crucial respect, we are in a better place than we were in 2010.  Amongst my concluding words in Victory Against All the Odds were these: “HACAN has been part of a famous victory. But we have work yet to do.  The planes are still roaring over our heads.  During the years of the campaign the noise has become immeasureably worse for many people.  Planes are lining up to join their final approach path further out than before.  Aircraft noise is now a real problem for more people much further from the airport.”

A key task for HACAN in 2010 was to get the authorities to recognise this problem; indeed, more generally, to find ways to improve things for residents under the flight paths of a two-runway Heathrow.  It coincided with a change of attitude from Heathrow Airport, then still called BAA:  they had been chastened by their failure to get a third runway and realized they had to do things differently.

http://www.hacan.org.uk/resources/reports/how.the.heathrow.campaign.was.won.pdf

HACAN commissioned the consultants Bureau Veritas** to carry out a study to assess

if, and how, flight paths over London have changed over the past 10 years. The study,

No Place to Hide, was paid for by a grant from the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone.

It just covered London. It did not cover areas to the west of the airport, but the findings

outlined would be applicable to those areas.

Key findings:

Aircraft noise has become a London-wide problem.

In places 20 kilometres from Heathrow “aircraft noise dominated the local

environment.” For example, there was “an almost constant background of aircraft noise” in

Kennington Park, close to the Oval Cricket Ground, well over 15 kilometres from the airport.

In some areas of East London flown over by both Heathrow planes and City Airport

noise levels were comparable to those in parts of West London.

Key conclusions:

“The increase in the number of movements between 1996 and 2005 can clearly be seen”

“In terms of geographical spread, the greatest increases have occurred in the early

morning and in the evening – arguably the relatively more sensitive times of day”

“The relatively high levels of aircraft noise that do occur at some distance from the airport

are certainly enough to be noticed by those living in those areas and in certain circumstances

to cause some disturbance and intrusion.”

“The results of this study do explain why aircraft noise from operations at London

Heathrow is a cause for concern beyond the boundary of (the officially recognised*)

contour.”

* The official contour (where the Government and aviation industry acknowledge there may be a noise problem)

contains the area enclosed by the 57 dB(A) LAeq contour. That is, the area where aircraft noise averages

* The official contour (where the Government and aviation industry acknowledge there may be a noise problem)

contains the area enclosed by the 57 dB(A) LAeq contour. That is, the area where aircraft noise averages out at 57

decibels over the course of the summer – roughly between Barnes and Heathrow.

Key reason for the increase:

The growth in the number of aircraft using Heathrow (and in some areas, City Airport)

has required changes to be made to landing patterns:

 Many more routes between the holding stacks and the airport are now in use;

 Planes are forced to take less direct routes from the stacks, resulting in many more

turning movements (which has increased noise levels).

Not one of those presented here lives within eight miles of Heathrow, and not one of them

knowingly chose to live under a flight path. The flight paths came to them, without any kind of a

public process, without any meaningful avenue of complaint, without any hope of redress. Each

has written as honestly as they can of the way in which their lives are blighted by aircraft

overhead, but reading accounts is not really enough: one has to be directly subjected to the level

of aircraft noise these people experience day and night to understand the way it eats into a

person’s life.

http://hacan.org.uk/resources/reports/hacan.living_under.pdf 2002 Living under Heathrow’s flight paths

http://hacan.org.uk/resources/reports/hacan.flight.paths.study.pdf

Santa gets it.  He knows just how much of London and the South East is impacted by aircraft noise from Heathrow.    Most people don’t.  They tend to only know their own patch.  Not so Santa.  The nature of his job means he’s familiar with every square mile.

He wouldn’t be surprised that most years the majority of complaints received by HACAN some from south, south-east and even east London.  He senses most people in west London have learnt to live with the noise.  On the whole, they don’t want any more of it – and they certainly don’t want to loose their respite periods – but in some ways aircraft noise has become part of the fabric of life in west London.

Certainly the biggest demand for ear defenders each year comes from south and south east London.  But Santa has been known to bring them down the chimneys in places as far from Heathrow as Walthamstow, Hackney and Leytonstone.  He suspects part of the reason for the problem in East London is the fact they get City Airport planes as well.  It always amazes him the noise levels of aircraft from City and Heathrow are assessed separately.  That’s not how his customers hear noise!

Genial though he is, Santa can get annoyed when he hears whispered conversations that people who don’t like noise shouldn’t have moved under the flight path.  He accepts that may be true of people who moved into west London in recent years but it is a silly thing to say about folks living over 20 miles away in south east London.   And even in west London it not always true – in these times of austerity many people have no choice but to move to where they can get a job.

Of course Santa is aware that not all the 766,000 people who are officially impacted by the noise are disturbed by it.  He knows that the he only has to glide silently down the chimney of around 10% of homes.  If he could deliver during the day, it would be a bit less.  Still, more than any other city in Europe.

In his letters this year one big – and at first sight, rather surprising – request.  The residents of Teddington, Ascot, Englefield Green and one or two others places were adamant:  no present that included “free trials”.

So, what will be the big requests for Christmas 2015?  Santa likes to collect his letters a year in advance to give himself and his elves plenty of time to prepare.

Top of the list came the call for official periods of respite from the noise.

Heathrow wanted respite plus a third runway.

And then there was the annual call for an end to night flights.  Santa feels that could be a game-changer….and make his job so much easier.

The residents of the Heathrow villages wanted still to be in their homes this time next year.

Back Heathrow wanted a knighthood for the CEO of Populus for services to polling.

Santa doesn’t like to disappoint.  But some of the requests appear contradictory. However, he’ll do his best.  He senses he has a chance of pulling something off.

Have as peaceful a New Year as you can.