Today’s Times carries a remarkably good article on noise:
One of the great compensations of lockdown is hearing less noise, at least of the external, ungovernable kind. Everywhere people are marvelling at hearing the complexity of birdsong, the peacefulness of streets with so little traffic, the pleasure of walking in parks without aircraft rumbling overhead.
This is a remarkable, temporary liberation from one of the greatest and least considered sources of stress in our lives. Most of us are battered by noise every day. The imposition of noise and the level of it has risen sharply over the past 40 years.
It goes on to outline how noise can impact our health, well-being and productivity at work and ends with a rally call:
Let’s campaign for more bicycles, quieter road surfaces, lower speeds, fewer planes, minimal announcements, restrictions on the construction hours the government has just, mistakenly, extended. It’s what our hearts and minds not only want but cannot flourish without.
Campaign group HACAN, which gives a voice to residents under the Heathrow flight paths, has said that today’s judgement (1), to grant Heathrow leave to appeal does not mean a third runway is back on track.
Heathrow was granted leave to appeal to the Supreme Court in its bid to
overturn the verdict of the Court of Appeal, delivered in February, that the
Government had failed to take account of the Paris Agreement on climate change
in making its decision to allow Heathrow to start drawing up detailed plans for
a third runway (1).
HACAN chair John Stewart said, “Today’s ruling was much as
expected. The surprise would have been
if an appeal on an issue as big as this had not been allowed. What it does not mean is that the third
runway is back on track. Heathrow
remains very much on its own as the Government is not backing its appeal.”
Stewart added the post-virus situation adds to the unlikelihood of a third
runway ever being built: “There is real uncertainty about future demand as the
country emerges from lockdown. Investors
will want to make sure they will get a real return on their money before
agreeing to the £14 billion needed for a third runway which could easily rise
by the time it goes ahead.”
The court did not give a date when the appeal would be heard
The Government has said it will abide by the decision on the Supreme Court. If Heathrow wins it will be able to resume drawing up its plans for a third runway to be presented to a Public Inquiry,
probably within the next two years. The Government, though, would have the final
say as it would need to endorse or overrule the recommendation of the planning
inspectors.
(2). On 28th
February the Court of Appeal ruled that the Government’s policy on a third
runway at Heathrow was illegal. It found that the Department for Transport
should have taken the climate change implications of the Paris Agreement into
account when drawing up the National Policy Statement which outlined its plans
for a third runway. The court invited the Government to review the climate
section of the National Policy Statement (NPS).
The NPS, drawn up by the Department for Transport, put forward the case
for a third runway at Heathrow. In June
2018 the House of Commons overwhelmingly voted in favour of the NPS by 415
votes to 119.
That gave Heathrow the green light
to draw up detailed plans for the new runway. Those plans would need to
be put to be put to a Public Inquiry but the principle of a third runway had
been agreed by Parliament. What the
Court of Appeal found was that the NPS was unlawful because it had not taken
into consideration the Paris Agreement and the commitment to achieve net-zero
carbon emissions by 2050.
The Court did not rule against a
third runway and invited the Government to reconsider and amend what the NPS
about the third runway in order to take account of the Paris Agreement. In normal circumstances that it what a
Government would do so that the project would be delayed rather than
abandoned. But it is widely assumed that the Prime Minister Boris
Johnston, a long-standing opponent of Heathrow, will amend the NPS to kill off
a third runway. The Government decided
not to appeal.
Taming the Tsunami of anger against the aviation industry
Maybe I shouldn’t have been, but I’ve been taken aback by the sheer fury against the aviation industry which the Coronavirus crisis has unleashed. I’m not talking about anti-capitalists calling for ‘system change not climate change’. That was fairly predicable.
What has come across with the force of a tsunami is the anger and resentment directed at the aviation industry from ordinary residents living under flight paths. It is as if a lid has been lifted and uncontrolled emotions have poured out like hot lava escaping from a volcanic eruption.
Social media, email inboxes, the mainstream press have been flooded with material railing against industry bail-outs, insufficient testing of people arriving at airports or the merest hint of aviation workers being asked to take a pay cut. I’m not saying there is not truth in some of those accusations. But the accusations themselves have been dwarfed the sheer fury and frequency with which they are being made.
It is symptomatic of a much deeper anger. People’s anger doesn’t allow them to acknowledge the industry has any good points. Well-written articles about the importance of air freight to bring in medicines and essential supplies are met with an embarrassed silence. It’s like what happens in a violent revolution: good and bad are treated alike and all trampled underfoot.
Fury on this scale must have real roots. It can, it is true, be reinforced by fellow travellers, particularly on social media, and be as contagious as any virus. But there has to be more than that behind it.
We need to look at – the aviation industry in particular needs to look at – where this fury is coming from. A leading campaigner said to me, “the industry didn’t look after us in the good times, why should we be nice to it now?” And broadly, with some notable exceptions, that’s true:
Why did so many American airports choose to put their new concentrated flight paths over just a handful of communities when they could have created multiple routes and rotated them to share out the burden?
Why does Charles De Gaulle still land over 150 planes at night when both Frankfurt and Heathrow have periods without scheduled flights?
Why is Luton Council, the owner of the airport, the judge and jury of when it breaks its own planning regulations?
Why does Newcastle refuse to even consider giving residents respite?
Why did Glasgow Airport turn a deaf ear for over a decade to calls for insulation from residents who have planes just 400ft above them?
All these problems could have been sorted without affecting the viability of the aviation industry. The industry knows that. Residents know that. In these cases, and many more, the industry felt it could ignore the residents almost at will. We begin to see where the fury and the anger have come from.
Research shows that people become more annoyed if they feel that any industry, any company is not doing all it can to mitigate its downsides.
There are signs in the UK things will improve. ICCAN, the Independent Commission on Civil Aviation Noise, is due to publish a best practice guide later this very year and ICCAN’s very presence should improve the industry’s behaviour. The Government’s Aviation White Paper, also out later this year, is expected to introduce tougher standards on noise, sound insulation and community engagement.
And there are some airports which are doing noticeably better than others. And there have been welcome initiatives taken across the industry.
But I think what is needed is a new contract between airports and their residents. A contract where best practice is not just the norm, but is mandatory; where first-class consultation is not just a nice-to-have, but is compulsory; where if residents want respite, the airport needs to provide it; where the provision of sound insulation is not a post-code lottery; where residents help shape the noise policy of the airport and are not merely consulted on it from time to time. Airports, and perhaps airlines as well, should be required to provide an annual public account showing if and how they have met the regulations. If they have not, the most effective sanction would a requirement to reduce the number of planes using the airport by, say, 5% in the following year.
I hope that is not unrealistically tough. But I think something like this is required to abate the fury of residents. It would not harm the industry, even an industry that is currently on its knees, stricken by the virus, for these sorts of regulations to be met.
The other factor fuelling the fury is the sheer number of flights now going over so many communities. Respite in my view should be a no-brainer for the industry. It is the way to reduce flights numbers over particular communities while allowing some overall growth at the airport.
It would be a mistake at this stage to talk about more taxes on the industry in order to manage demand. It will take a long time to recover from the lockdown. The boss of Lufthansa said in the last few days: “It will take months until the global travel restrictions are completely lifted and years until the worldwide demand for air travel returns to pre-crisis levels.”
We need the industry to revive. Aviation has been a critical part of the globalised economy which has over the last few decades has lifted billions out of poverty. Aviation facilitates trade which brings prosperity and often opens up closed societies. Moreover, with less than 10% of the world having ever flown, there will be, in time, increased demand for both business and leisure travel.
What many residents fear, though, is return to the bombardment of noise over their heads. I suspect in due course there needs to be some demand management to ensure this doesn’t happen. Aviation is under-taxed, with no tax on aviation fuel and no VAT on tickets (outside a few countries). Something like the Frequent Flyers Levy (where each person gets one tax-free return flight each year but tax rises with each subsequent flight) could do the trick. It would manage demand and maybe reduce it in parts of Europe. The clever move – and I think the right move – would be to use the revenue from the tax to go to both Governments and the aviation industry for research and development into quieter and cleaner planes by both the public and private sector. Imposed in the short-term, the tax would be an additional burden for an industry on its knees. In the medium-term, though, it may well be a key part of the answer which will help abate the anger of residents while bringing benefits to the aviation industry.
In this short blog I argue that the Department for Transport in its forthcoming White Paper should make expansion or growth at any airport conditional on quality community engagement: https://hacan.org.uk/blog/?p=634
We don’t know yet what will happen with the third runway at Heathrow. But whether or not it is dropped, it is important that one aspect of the process remains: the community engagement Heathrow has undertaken as part of its efforts to secure a third runway.
Some of the engagement was undertaken voluntarily; some was mandated by the National Policy Statement – Heathrow would not get its third runway unless it had shown it had engaged with its local community.
The proposal in this short blog is that future expansion at any airport across the country should be conditional on good community engagement. It should become a key criterion in determining whether the expansion is given the go-ahead.
If a third runway is dropped, the Government will be encouraging growth at other airports. Yet many of them are very poor at engaging with their communities. It was clear at a recent Aviation Communities Forum conference, which brought together campaigners from across the country, that most airports just do not have adequate engagement procedures in place.
ICCAN, the Independent Commission on Civil Aviation Noise, is planning to publish a best practice guide later this year. That will be very welcome. But isn’t there a case for the Department for Transport in its forthcoming Aviation White Paper to go one step further and make expansion/growth conditional on first-rate community engagement?
The Court of Appeal ruled that the Government’s policy on a third runway at Heathrow was illegal. It found that the Department for Transport should have taken the climate change implications of the Paris Agreement into account when drawing up the National Policy Statement which outlined its plans for a third runway. The court invited the Government to review the climate section of the National Policy Statement.
What the court ruling means
(This is a longer piece than we normally put on our home page but we feel the potential importance of the decision justifies it – if you want to send this story as link, use https://hacan.org.uk/?p=5971)
The National Policy Statement on Airports (NPS), drawn up by the Department for Transport, put forward the case for a third runway at Heathrow.
In June 2018 the House of Commons overwhelmingly voted in favour of the NPS by 415 votes to 119.
That gave Heathrow the green light to draw up detailed plans for the new runway. Those plans would need to be put to be put to a Public Inquiry but the principle of a third runway had been agreed by Parliament.
What the Court of Appeal found was that the NPS was unlawful because it had not taken into consideration the Paris Agreement and the commitment to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Here is the key paragraph of the judgement:
” Our decision should be properly understood. We have not decided, and could not decide, that there will be no third runway at Heathrow. We have not found that a national policy statement supporting this project is necessarily incompatible with the United Kingdom’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions and mitigating climate change under the Paris Agreement, or with any other policy the Government may adopt or international obligation it may undertake. The consequence of our decision is that the Government will now have the opportunity to reconsider the ANPS in accordance with the clear statutory requirements that Parliament has imposed (paragraph 285).”
The Court has not said there will be no third runway but is inviting the Government to reconsider and amend what the NPS about the third runway in order to take account of the Paris Agreement.
In normal circumstances that it what a Government would do so that the project would be delayed rather than abandoned. But it is widely assumed that the Prime Minister Boris Johnston, a long-standing opponent of Heathrow, will amend the NPS to kill off a third runway.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps in a statement to Parliament yesterday, said: “The court’s judgment is complex and requires careful consideration. We will set out our next steps in due course”.
The NPS, for example, could be amended to allow expansion at other airports instead of the third runway at Heathrow. That is what Grant Shapps hinted at in his statement.
“We fully recognise the importance of the aviation sector for the whole of the UK economy. The UK’s airports support connections to over 370 overseas destinations in more than 100 countries facilitating trade, investment and tourism. It facilitates £95.2 billion of UK’s non-EU trade exports; contributes at least £14 billion directly to GDP; supports over half a million jobs and underpins the competitiveness and global reach of our national and our regional economies. Under our wider “making best use” policy, airports across the UK are already coming forward with ambitious proposals to invest in their infrastructure”.
The Government has said that it will not appeal to the Supreme Court to get yesterday’s decision overturned.
Heathrow will appeal to the Supreme Court but might struggle to overturn yesterday’s decision without Government backing.
It is expected that Heathrow will continue to draw up, and consult on, its detailed plans for a third runway while the appeal is being taken to the Supreme Court.
Except for the ruling on climate change, the Court found all other aspects of the NPS – on noise, air pollution etc – were lawful.
What will the Government do if it drops a third runway? It is clear from Shapps statement to Parliament that it will encourage expansion to take place at other airports. I suspect, too, that Heathrow will come back with plans to increase the number of flights using the airport by abandoning/reducing the half day’s runway alternation enjoyed by communities in West London. There might also be a push from the airlines for more night flights.
The re-organisation of Heathrow’s flight paths will continue as it has been driven by new technology not by the third runway.
The ruling could have implications for other large projects. The Court has ruled that projects must be assessed to ensure they adhere to the Paris Agreement and ate compatible with achieving a zero-carbon target by 2050. There are being questions raised today over the Government’s £28bn road building programme. And, although the Paris Agreement regulations are carried out on a national basis, other countries will be looking with interest at this judgement.
The Court of Appeal ruled that the Government’s policy on a third runway at Heathrow was illegal. It found that the Department for Transport should have taken the climate change implications of the Paris Agreement into account when drawing up the National Policy Statement which outlined its plans for a third runway. The court invited the Government to review the climate section of the National Policy Statement.
What the court ruling means
(This is a longer piece than we normally put up but we feel the potential importance of the decision justifies it – if you want to send this story as a link, use https://hacan.org.uk/?p=5971)
The National Policy Statement on Airports (NPS), drawn up by the Department for Transport, put forward the case for a third runway at Heathrow.
In June 2018 the House of Commons overwhelmingly voted in favour of the NPS by 415 votes to 119.
That gave Heathrow the green light to draw up detailed plans for the new runway. Those plans would need to be put to be put to a Public Inquiry but the principle of a third runway had been agreed by Parliament.
What the Court of Appeal found was that the NPS was unlawful because it had not taken into consideration the Paris Agreement and the commitment to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Here is the key paragraph of the judgement:
” Our decision should be properly understood. We have not decided, and could not decide, that there will be no third runway at Heathrow. We have not found that a national policy statement supporting this project is necessarily incompatible with the United Kingdom’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions and mitigating climate change under the Paris Agreement, or with any other policy the Government may adopt or international obligation it may undertake. The consequence of our decision is that the Government will now have the opportunity to reconsider the ANPS in accordance with the clear statutory requirements that Parliament has imposed (paragraph 285).”
The Court has not said there will be no third runway but is inviting the Government to reconsider and amend what the NPS about the third runway in order to take account of the Paris Agreement.
In normal circumstances that it what a Government would do so that the project would be delayed rather than abandoned. But it is widely assumed that the Prime Minister Boris Johnston, a long-standing opponent of Heathrow, will amend the NPS to kill off a third runway.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps in a statement to Parliament yesterday, said: “The court’s judgment is complex and requires careful consideration. We will set out our next steps in due course”.
The NPS, for example, could be amended to allow expansion at other airports instead of the third runway at Heathrow. That is what Grant Shapps hinted at in his statement.
“We fully recognise the importance of the aviation sector for the whole of the UK economy. The UK’s airports support connections to over 370 overseas destinations in more than 100 countries facilitating trade, investment and tourism. It facilitates £95.2 billion of UK’s non-EU trade exports; contributes at least £14 billion directly to GDP; supports over half a million jobs and underpins the competitiveness and global reach of our national and our regional economies. Under our wider “making best use” policy, airports across the UK are already coming forward with ambitious proposals to invest in their infrastructure”.
The Government has said that it will not appeal to the Supreme Court to get yesterday’s decision overturned.
Heathrow will appeal to the Supreme Court but might struggle to overturn yesterday’s decision without Government backing.
It is expected that Heathrow will continue to draw up, and consult on, its detailed plans for a third runway while the appeal is being taken to the Supreme Court.
Except for the ruling on climate change, the Court found all other aspects of the NPS – on noise, air pollution etc – were lawful.
What will the Government do if it drops a third runway? It is clear from Shapps statement to Parliament that it will encourage expansion to take place at other airports. I suspect, too, that Heathrow will come back with plans to increase the number of flights using the airport by abandoning/reducing the half day’s runway alternation enjoyed by communities in West London. There might also be a push from the airlines for more night flights.
The re-organisation of Heathrow’s flight paths will continue as it has been driven by new technology not by the third runway.
The ruling could have implications for other large projects. The Court has ruled that projects must be assessed to ensure they adhere to the Paris Agreement and ate compatible with achieving a zero-carbon target by 2050. There are being questions raised today over the Government’s £28bn road building programme. And, although the Paris Agreement regulations are carried out on a national basis, other countries will be looking with interest at this judgement.
COURT RULES
GOVERNMENT POLICY ON HEATHROW THIRD RUNWAY ILLEGAL
The Court of Appeal today ruled that
the Government’s policy on a third runway at Heathrow was illegal. It found that the Department for Transport
should have taken the climate change implications of the Paris Agreement into
account when drawing up the National Policy Statement which outlined its plans
for a third runway. The court invited
the Government to review the climate section of the National Policy
Statement.
John Stewart, the chair of HACAN,
the residents’ organisation which has been campaigning against a third runway
since 2003, said, “It does look as if this is the end of the road for a third
runway. It is hard to see a Government
lead by Boris Johnson, who has always been against the runway, appealing against
this decision. In fact, it probably
gives the Prime Minister the opportunity he was looking for to drop the
runway.”
The challenge had been brought by a
number of local authorities (Hammersmith, Richmond, Windsor & Maidenhead, Hillingdon
and Wandsworth), the Mayor of London, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Plan
B.
The Government is expected to make a
statement later today.
A note to the man ‘who got Brexit done’: delay a 3rd runway decision and many communities will hurt
A third runway at Heathrow could still be a decade away. That’s even if it gets the final green light from the Secretary of State for Transport in 2021 following the public inquiry which is expected to start later this year. It had been scheduled to open in 2026 but now it could be 2029. That’s because the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) announced shortly before Chistmas that it had refused Heathrow permission to spend the money it wanted on a third runway before final permission has been granted.
As I a long-time opponent of a third runway I should be delighted. But, although I know delay is a tried and tested – and sometimes successful – tactic used to a stop major development, I’m uneasy about the prospect of a delay. Too much is hold until the runway is either built or abandoned. And not just for the obvious players: Heathrow as well as many businesses and some other airports who would plan differently if a third runway was dropped; but also for many communities, including many of the people who HACAN represents.
It is not unlike Brexit. Except for committed remainers, there seems to be general relief that a clear decision on Brexit will now be taken. The uncertainty was hurting.
A lot of residents are hurting waiting for some certainty around a third runway. A couple of weekends ago I visited some of our members who live not far from Brixton in South London. They’ve had all-day flying for years. During my visit the noise was constant.
They suspect nothing will change in the short-term because the aviation industry is focused on plans for a third runway, designing its flight paths and a new night flight regime on the basis it will happen. For them, those changes may be potentially beneficial: a longer night period without planes and an end to all-day flying as multiple routes are introduced in order to provide them with respite they’ve been wanting for years. If a runway is to be given permission, they would prefer it – and the changes it would usher in – to open in 2026 rather than 2029.
Big decisions hang on the timing. One woman told me she could not face another decade of unremmiting noise and would need to move away whereas five or six years might just be about bearable.
They need to know what will happen to them if the third runway is dropped. They know that new flight paths, driven by new satellite-based technology, will come in whether or not as third runway will be built. But all the current focus is on how to coordinate the flight paths of a 3-runway Heathrow with the new flight paths being introduced at the other airports in London and the South East. A huge undertaking which would probably need to start from scratch if Heathrow remained a 2-runway airport.
On Friday I received two emails, one from a woman in Lewisham, the other from a couple in Chiswick wanting to move but not knowing where to go because of the continuing uncertainty about where new flight paths will be and when they will be introduced. They feel in limbo.
This uncertainty is perhaps most stark for those whose homes are threatened by the runway. Some don’t want to move; others are prepared to take the offer on the table; but most want some certainty so they can plan their future.
If a third runway means you will be under a flight path for the first time, or if a third runway will mean more planes over your home, or if you are a climate campainger, delay is important.
But we need to recognise many communities want an early decision – one way or another. Their lives are on hold – and often dominated by unremitting noise which nobody feels they can do anything about until a decision is made.
It is not always easy for campaigners to understand that it is not just many in business and the aviation industry who want a clear decision on a third runway soon. It is also many local communities.
