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.