Response to the Quieter Heathrow consultation on its Noise Action Plan 2024-28 – July 2023
RTFoE is disappointed to see the lack of meaningful and urgent actions on aviation noise in the latest noise consultation. Our members are significantly impacted by departures over Twickenham, Teddington and Hampton when winds blow easterly and by arrivals over Richmond when there are westerly winds. One only has to look at the numbers of complaints, both to Heathrow and to Munira Wilson MP, to understand how badly this area suffers.
Whilst there are some positive actions planned to get rid of the noisiest planes and incentivise quieter ones, failure to implement a minimum 8-hour night flight ban will mean continued disturbed sleep and resulting damage to health – particularly from late night and early morning flights
We are also subjected to unnecessary levels of noise because the majority of departing planes do not adopt the recommended ICAO climb profile NADP1 and so can be as low as 2000ft when they could be at 4000ft. The DET route also has the lion’s share of low, long-haul, late-night departures and areas such as North Teddington and Twickenham experience noise from several flightpaths.
Given that the Government has committed to the introduction of PBN as part of Airspace Modernisation, it’s vital that lessons are learned from the experiences of communities round the world and recognised health impacts from flightpath concentration. Given that one of the selling points of airspace modernisation was supposed to be meaningful and predictable respite, perhaps it’s time to be honest about the difficulty of doing this in a densely populated area such as London. Your target of 5% increase in residents reporting an improvement in noise levels over 5 years looks particularly unambitious.
Since ICCAN was disbanded, it’s ever more important to ensure that independent noise/health evidence is collected and that the views of communities through the NACF are considered.
The CCC has reiterated that there should be no net expansion of aviation in the UK if we are to meet our carbon emission targets so demand must be managed. Fewer planes will mean less noise so perhaps we should be adopting the same position as Schiphol and calling for a reduction in numbers.