South east London has seen “significant” increase in concentration of flights since 2011
Areas of south east London are “heavily overflown” by Heathrow aircraft and have seen significant increases in the concentration of flights since 2011, a Heathrow pressure group has found.
Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise (Hacan) has released a new report which covered the boroughs of Greenwich, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark and found that the area was already “heavily overflown”, with communities able to hear around 38 planes an hour. The number could rise to over 40 during busy periods and over 50 between 6am and 7am, it said.
“More than ever flights are being guided through ‘concentrated corridors’ which means that particular communities are especially badly hit,” Hacan said.
It said the number of flights around Brockley grew by 135 between 2011 and 2017, while Greenwich saw an increase of 165 a day.
The group carried out the research by counting every aircraft from each location, during day and night hours. It’s work has been backed up by The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which concluded that “overall the results support your observations”.
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John Stewart, Hacan chair, told City A.M: “The noise from Heathrow aircraft in south east London is very disturbing. It will become more disturbing if the third runway is built because the number of planes will increase significantly.”
Heathrow currently has a cap of 480,000 flights. With the third runway, the capacity will increase to 740,000, Stewart said, meaning there will be 260,000 more flights, with many of these flying over the region.
The report recommends that instead of concentrating night flights over particular communities the uncrowded airspace at night should be used to create multiple flight paths.
It also urges the airport to use technology to distribute arrivals “fairly over multiple approach routes”. “This should include the introduction of flight paths where planes join their final approach closer to the airport. This would minimise the “tromboning” which is currently taking place over south east London,” it said.
Last month the transport select committee recommended that parliament approve the government’s case for a third runway, but only after concerns around air quality, noise and costs are properly addressed.
The committee said a third runway at Heathrow will offer the “greatest strategic benefits” but said there were still underlying concerns in the government’s plan – or airport national policy statement – surrounding air quality; surface access; regional connectivity; costs and airport charges; noise; community impacts and compensation, and resource and waste management.
A Heathrow spokesperson said: “We welcome the contribution of this report to the debate on flight paths and how they should be redesigned in the future. Drawing on the report’s recommendations, they very much reflect some of the key questions we asked during our recent airspace consultation.
“Our aim is to make the airspace around Heathrow more efficient, improve punctuality, cut CO2 emissions, reduce noise from less aircraft-holding at low levels and to ensure there is capacity to meet future demand. It is pleasing to see that the aims of all parties are similar and we are very keen to continue the dialogue with communities on these points.”
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