See HACAN  HYPERLINK “http://www.hacan.org.uk/blog/” blog for an assessment

Read our summary of the proposals with HACAN’s initial comments.

Read the HACAN Press Release.

Heathrow Airport’s outgoing chief executive Colin Matthews has admitted that the M4 would need to be diesel-free if a 3rd runway was ever built at the airport. Matthews told the aviation specialists Flightglobal that “to fix air quality at Heathrow [you need to] replace the fleet of diesel engines coming down the M4 [motorway]”. It is the first time that a senior Heathrow official has been so frank about the air pollution problems the airport is facing.

Read press release.

Read original article.

What respectable residents get up in Frankfurt every Monday evening in the airport terminal. For their 94th protest in the terminal they destroyed a mock up of the hated 4th runway. Spectacular and entertaining video here and here.  The 4th runway was opened in 2011. The new flight paths put in place to service it have generated weekly protests ever since with up to 5,000 residents occupying the terminal. The protests have succeeded in getting a ban on night flights.

A new report from mvaconsultancy shows that people are affected by much lower levels of aircraft noise than the Government has admitted. It challenges the whole basis of aircraft noise policy.

Read this.

HACAN has dismissed the six week consultation Heathrow Airport is embarking on on 3rd February as ‘a PR exercise’. The consultation is not about whether or not people want a 3rd runway but on how they think Heathrow’s plans for one can be improved!

See details in the HACAN press release.

A coalition has been formed to oppose any plans for a third runway at Heathrow.

The Airports Commission, set up by the Government, is looking at two options for a 3rd runway at Heathrow, in addition to the option of a 2nd runway at Gatwick.

Still on the table is the option of an Isle of Grain airport on the Kent Coast. The Commission is currently doing further work on all these shortlisted options. It will ask for further comments in the autumn. Its final report will be out in summer 2015 but, whatever its recommendation, the final decision will be up to the Government of the day.

Read about the options in more detail in the HACAN newsletter.

 

The Government announced today (11/11/13) that it is proposing no significant changes to the night flight regime at Heathrow until 2017.

Originally, it planned changes next year but it argues it would be sensible to wait until after the Airports Commission, which is looking possible expansion on London and the South East, reports in Summer 2015.

Read the HACAN reaction.
Read the details of the consultation.
Read the HACAN Briefing that helps those wanting to respond to the consultation.

A new study, to be published today (9/10/13), has found that deaths from stroke, heart and circulatory disease are 20% higher in areas with high levels of aircraft noise than in places with the least noise.

Researchers at Imperial College London and King’s College London compared data on day- and night-time aircraft noise with hospital admissions and mortality rates among a population of 3.6 million people living near Heathrow airport. The findings are published in the British Medical Journal. The study covered 12 London boroughs and nine districts outside of London where aircraft noise exceeds 50 decibels – about the volume of a normal conversation in a quiet room.

Link to the study. Link to the HACAN press release.

The new Heathrow Airport-inspired ‘Back Heathrow’ campaign has send a newspaper to half a million homes.

Read HACAN’s rebuttal.

HACAN calls it “the actions of a desperate organisation.”

Read our press release.