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<\/a><\/p>\nCampaigners from Heathrow, Gatwick and London City airports today delivered a joint letter \u00a0to Patrick McLoughlin, the Secretary of State for Transport, demanding a voice for residents in flight path changes which are expected to be introduced over the next few years.\u00a0 Campaigners have asked for a meeting with the Transport Secretary.<\/p>\n
Read the letter here:\u00a0Gatwick Heathrow and City Airport Flight Path Letter to DfT<\/a><\/p>\n The move followes anger from residents at the changes to flight paths which have taken place over the last couple of years. Protest groups have sprung up around Gatwick in response to the changes to both arrival and departure routes.\u00a0 The recent trials at Heathrow sparked a record number of complaints.\u00a0 And in East London furious residents staged public meetings at not being proper consulted about London City\u2019s proposals to concentrate flight paths.<\/p>\n The airspace changes are part of a Europe-wide programme to make more effective use of airspace and are now impacting the whole of the UK.\u00a0 They are designed to enable airlines to save fuel, to allow aircraft to land at and depart from airports more efficiently.\u00a0\u00a0 In the UK Gatwick and London City have been earmarked as first in line for the changes.\u00a0 Heathrow is expected to have its changes in place by 2019 with national changes by 2020.<\/p>\n Residents fear that the changes will result in excessive concentration of aircraft along selected routes.\u00a0 They are particularly critical of NATS (National Air Traffic Control) and the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority), the two organizations who are driving the changes.<\/p>\n John Stewart, who chairs HACAN, the organisation which gives a voice to residents under the Heathrow flight paths, said, \u201cNATS and CAA are remote from residents.\u00a0 They plan these flight path changes in their hi-tec ivory towers.\u00a0 Our letter to the Transport Secretary contains positive proposals for flight paths that could work for both the industry and for residents.\u00a0 They involve providing all residents with some respite from the noise.\u00a0 HACAN is actively engaging with Heathrow to see what can be done.\u00a0 But it does require NATS and the CAA to play ball\u201d.<\/p>\n Stewart added, \u201cLondon City Airport have been much less willing to engage with us and seem content to simply do what NATS asks them even if it means the creation of noise ghettos.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Campaigners from Heathrow, Gatwick and London City airports today delivered a joint letter \u00a0to Patrick McLoughlin, the Secretary of State for Transport, demanding a voice for residents in flight path changes which are expected to be introduced over the next few years.\u00a0 Campaigners have asked for a meeting with the Transport Secretary. Read the … Continue reading “Campaigners from Heathrow, Gatwick and City airports join forces to demand a voice in flight path changes”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3167"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hacan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}